UNM men’s basketball team heads to Australia for exhibition tour Sports, D-1
A Territorial-style beauty for sale in Las Campanas Home, inside Santa Fe Real
Estate Guide
Aug ust 201 3
Locally owned and independent
Sunday, August 4, 2013
www.santafenewmexican.com $1.25 Beauty in Parade of Hom Ranch Estates es • Homewise
Steering the schools
Board to mull pot program changes Critics blast proposed rules for medical usage By Phaedra Haywood
busy
Over the past year, Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel Boyd has been constantly on the go, starting with a ride on a school bus on the first day of school last year. NEW MEXICAN FILE PHOTO
His first year at the helm behind him, Superintendent Joel Boyd, known for his direct leadership style, faces the challenge of improving the district’s performance
The New Mexican
The New Mexico Medical Board is proposing new rules for doctors and other providers who certify patients for the state’s Medical Cannabis Program, but critics contend the board is overstepping its authority and could create more barriers for those who seek the treatment. The board, which will consider the rules during a public hearing later this month, says the changes are designed to clear up confusion over the role of the provider in certifying patients for the program. Medical Board Director Lynn Hart says certifying a patient for medical marijuana is the same as prescribing a narcotic pain reliever or recommending physical therapy. She said the regulations are designed to remind providers that they must follow the same medical protocols when certifying patients for cannabis as they would follow when providing other treatments. But program advocates — including a current and former member of the Medical Cannabis Program’s advisory board — say certifying a patient for
Please see POT, Page A-5
Ancient skeleton tests tribes, researchers What to do with remains still controversial two decades after discovery By Lynda V. Mapes The Seattle Times
NANEUM, Wash. — Wind sweeps across this lonely stretch of sagebrush, carrying songs and prayers of 10 tribes gathered here, laying ancestral remains to rest. From both sides of the mountains, they helped bless the bones of 57 individuals wrapped in white cotton muslin tied with cotton string, put away with cedar boughs and tule mats within a hand-dug grave. Afterward, elder Avery Cleveland of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation knelt to burn tobacco on the covered grave, sending its smoke and a horse song on the rising wind. The love and care paid to these remains, blessed and returned to the earth, is what tribal leaders say they want to give Kennewick Man. But nearly two decades after one of the oldest and most intact ancient skeletons ever found in North America was accidentally discovered, Kennewick Man, more than 9,500 years old, is still in limbo. That could be about to change. Scientists in Copenhagen right now are doing tests using new methods that could for the first time extract some of the skeleton’s DNA,
Boyd meets with SFPS administrators July 22, nearly a year after he began as superintendent on Aug. 1, 2012. KATHARINE EGLI/FOR THE NEW MEXICAN
O
Calendar A-2
Classifieds E-7
ne hot July morning, Joel Boyd got behind the wheel of a bulldozer to break ground on the new Nina Otero Community School on the south side of town. Some 20 spectators, including Board of Education members and local dignitaries, stood nearby to watch.
“If you can’t stop it, as a last resort turn the ignition off,” an aide told Boyd as the superintendent climbed into the machine. “If I can’t stop it, as a last resort get out of the way,” Boyd replied with his trademark broad smile. He didn’t run anyone over. A couple of weeks later, on Thursday, Boyd
marked his first anniversary as superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools. He oversees about 30 school sites, 13,000 students and some 1,800 employees, about half of whom are teachers. The 35-year-old Delaware native and former associate superintendent of the Philadelphia public school system holds a doctorate in education from Harvard University’s Urban Superinten-
Competitors show off their skills in the Santa Fe Table Tennis Open at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center. LOCAL NEwS, C-1
Neighbors C-7
Pasapick
Obituaries
‘Pride in the Saddle in New Mexico: The Story of Gay Rodeo Riders’
Pictures from a historic Beatles concert steal the show at a Taos art gallery. LOCAL NEwS, C-1
PAGE C-2
Opinions B-1
Police notes C-2
Interim Editor: Bruce Krasnow, 986-3034, bkrasnow@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Kristina Dunham, kdunham@sfnewmexican.com
Please see STEERING, Page A-4
One year in, SFPS Superintendent Joel Boyd is keeping promise of change. OPINIONS, B-2
Ynacio (Joe) M. Alvarez, 85, July 31 Nazario (Nick) C’ de Baca, 96, Bernalillo, July 31 Charles “Hayden” Hyde, 71, July 24 Fred Ernest Padilla, 89, July 18 James M. Taub, 94
Fab photos
Lotteries A-2
dents Program and earns about $171,000 annually. Some say he is firmly in the driver’s seat and taking the district in the right direction. Critics argue that he is running people over — or at least stepping on a few toes — in his efforts to bring reform. The school board chose him for one reason, Boyd said during a recent interview. “I was not hired in here to get mixed results. I was not hired in here to accept mediocrity. I was not hired in here to lead Santa Fe to the middle of the pack. It was quite clear that this community expected excellence and that this community expected Santa Fe to be at the top in every way, including education. And I fully expect to get there.” The district currently has a graduation rate of about 62 percent, up from 56.5 percent a year ago. But test data indicate that only 46 percent of
Our View: Super in a hurry
Serious about table tennis
Please see SKELETON, Page A-6
Index
BY ROBERT NOTT THE NEW MEXICAN
Real Estate E-1
Today Thunderstorms. High 89, low 60.
www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Gregory Hinton and Blake Little in conversation with photographer Herb Lotz and Brian Helander of the Gay & Lesbian Rodeo Heritage Foundation, 2 p.m., New Mexico History Museum auditorium, 113 Lincoln Ave., by museum admission, 476-5200. More events in Calendar, A-2
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Sports D-1
Time Out/puzzles C-8
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Six sections, 76 pages 164th year, No. 216 Publication No. 596-440