New Mexico-made ‘Breaking Bad’ earns top TV honors at Emmys Page A-12
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Snack-filled backpacks help hungry students From left, Piñon Elementary School sixth-graders Ana Chavez, 11, and Maya Calhoun, 11, gather backpacks filled with food for classmates in the Food Depot’s Food 4 Kids program. Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican
Food Depot program gives free assistance to families in need
By Adele Oliveira The New Mexican
Sometimes a little extra is all it takes to make a difference for a hungry child. That’s where Food 4 Kids, a program of The Food Depot, comes in — and why sixth-grade students at Piñon Elementary School help fill
backpacks with nonperishable food items two Thursdays a month. The granola bars, individual cereal boxes, vacuum-sealed milk, beef jerky and fruit cups are for schoolmates who could use nutritious food over the weekend and after school — times when parents
Casualties rise in Kenyan mall attack The country’s military says it has rescued “most” of the hostages being held captive by militants in a standoff that has killed at least 68 and injured 175. Page A-3
Please see HUNGRY, Page A-10
City of Santa Fe Kids Triathlon Young athletes exhibit stamina in race to the finish line
Youth on the move
Teacher transfer offer met with ire Some find $5K incentive to switch to schools with low grades insulting By Robert Nott The New Mexican
Jeffrey Gallegos, left, and Kimora Vollmar dash from the starting line during Sunday’s triathlon for 5- and 6-year-olds at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center. PHOTOS BY KAtharine Egli/For The New Mexican
By Chris Quintana The New Mexican
D
ozens of children gave up sleeping in Sunday to instead push themselves through a kids triathlon at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center. While some children rode bikes with training wheels, and a few others donned life jackets before entering the pool, all smiled when they strode across the finish line and received medals for completing the triathlon.
The second annual City of Santa Fe Kids Triathlon, held a day after the sixth annual City of Santa Fe Triathlon, wound through the Genoveva Chavez Community Center and led back to the swimming pool, where a man with a microphone announced the name of the children as they crossed the finish line and parents rushed to their little athletes with open towels. The range of competitors stretched from 5-year-olds to 12-year-olds, with separate competi-
Kayden Kelly leaves the pool and starts toward the finish line during the 5- and 6-year-olds’ triathlon Sunday at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center.
Please see MOVE, Page A-7
However well-intentioned Gov. Susana Martinez is in her efforts to pay teachers a $5,000 stipend to work at low-performing schools in New Mexico, a lot of educators are insulted at the offer and its timing. The governor recently announced that the state will give $5,000 bonus stipends to up to 100 teachers who agree to transfer from schools graded A or B to schools labeled D or F. Eligible teachers must agree to commit to two years in their new schools. The deadline for applying is Sept. 30. That means interested teachers would have to leave their current classes and transfer to new classrooms less than two months into the new school year. What that would do in terms of creating potential teacher vacancies is unclear. According to the Public Education Department, teachers from the Española, Questa and Taos school districts had expressed interest in the plan as of last week. According to the human resources departments of both the Albuquerque and Santa Fe public school systems, no teachers from those districts have applied yet, although at least two teachers within Santa Fe Public Schools have expressed interest. Timing aside, many teachers question the merit of the plan. “It’s ridiculous; it makes an offensive assumption that the A school teachers are somehow better than the F school
Please see TEACHER, Page A-7
Today Mostly sunny. High 74, low 44. Page A-12
Kids living in Mexico get education across border By Lyndsey Layton The Washington Post
COLUMBUS — The mothers, holding the small hands of their children, can go only as far as the glass door, where Mexico ends and the United States begins. They lean down and send off their little ones with a kiss and a silent prayer. The children file into the U.S. port of entry, chatting in Spanish as they pull U.S. birth certificates covered in protective plastic from Barbie and
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SpongeBob backpacks. Armed U.S. border officers wave them onto American soil and the yellow buses waiting to take them to school in Luna County. This is the daily ritual of the American schoolchildren of Palomas, Mexico, a phenomenon that dates back six decades and has helped blur the international border here. The tide of students washing over the border has drawn muted complaints from some local residents over the cost to U.S. taxpayers. But most accept the arrangement as a simple
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fact of life on the border, which feels like an artificial divide between communities laced together by bloodlines, marriage and commerce. For all the contentious national debate about immigration reform and stalled efforts in Congress to find consensus, the communities here live cooperatively. Still, coexistence is complicated and more nuanced than the discourse in Washington allows. Nearly three out of four students at Columbus Elementary, the school closest to the border, live in Palomas
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Editor: Ray Rivera, 986-3033, rrivera@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Kristina Dunham, kdunham@sfnewmexican.com
and were born to Mexican parents. The Palomas children are American because of a long-standing state and federal policy that allows Mexican women to deliver their babies at the nearest hospital, which happens to be 30 miles north of the border in Deming, the seat of Luna County. “All this hysteria about migrants and immigrants, throwing the undocumented out and all these bills being passed — well, we live in this area and
Pasapick
www.pasatiempomagazine.com
Blondie: No Principals Tour 7 p.m., The Santa Fe Opera, 301 Opera Drive, $32-$86, 986-5900, proceeds benefit the Española Valley Humane Society. More events in Calendar, A-2 and Fridays in Pasatiempo
Please see BORDER, Page A-7
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