Special-needs kids who don’t get help in school are winding up in jail.
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Posted inFeatured
First, aid
SOCORRO – Carlos slides through the windowless halls of Socorro High School with the grace of a jaguar, like he owns these disinfected floors, these metal lockers, this 7-foot sculpture of a Native American “Warrior” mascot in its glass case. Tight fade haircut. Zirconia studs glinting in his lobes. Calls himself a “New Mexico pretty […]
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
Left Behind: Where does the funding go?
New Mexico public schools get most of their budget — around 70 percent — from the state, based on a complex formula that takes into account everything from poverty rates to the number of special needs students. But once districts get that money, they have wide leeway as to how they actually spend it. And […]
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
Left Behind
QUESTA – When the fire alarm sounded before lunch in November of 2017, the staff at Alta Vista Elementary School knew they had a problem. A 6-year-old boy confined to a wheelchair needed to evacuate with the rest of his class. Unfortunately, the school had never purchased a chair that would let him leave the […]
Posted inFull Archive
In hot water: The dangerous side of a renewable energy project
From the outset, local residents had questioned Cyrq’s assertion that it could pump geothermal water from thousands of feet down and reinject it at similar depths without tainting the shallow, freshwater aquifer. Like many places in New Mexico, the health of the local farm and ranch economy is rooted to the water. So are the lives of the scattered people who live in the Animas Basin.
Posted inFull Archive, New Mexico's Children, New Mexico's Children, Politics
Needs improvement
Legislative session ends with mixed results for NM kids.
Posted inChild & Family Welfare
One generation removed: Raised by grandparents
Across New Mexico, grandparents have become an unofficial safety net, stepping up to raise the grandkids when their own children can’t. Cases of “kinship guardianship,” as it is known, are hardly unique to the state. But in New Mexico, where family ties run deep, grandparents are playing an unusually common role in caring for their grandkids.
Posted inFull Archive
Here, there and everywhere: Avoiding PFAS
The chemicals known collectively as PFAS are in everything from dental floss to outdoor gear. But consumers can make informed choices.
Posted inFull Archive
Toxic timeline: A brief history of PFAS
Research in the 1940s and ’50s led to the commercialization and widespread use of PFAS, substances that are now found in the bloodstream of almost all Americans.
Posted inEnvironment, Full Archive
Till the cows come home
Contamination of the water supply for Highland Dairy in Clovis likely means the end of operations – and raises health concerns for area residents.
