Saturday, November 10, 2007

Los Lunas votes on three options for name of new Westside school

Kenn Rodriguez News-Bulletin Staff Writer; krodriguez@news-bulletin.com

Los Lunas The as-yet unnamed Westside elementary school in Los Lunas is one step closer to being christened.

The Los Lunas Schools announced the final three names being considered for the school, which breaks ground soon and is scheduled to open in January 2009.

Los Lunas citizens will be able to vote on the three names both on-line today and by paper ballot starting Monday, said deputy superintendent Bernard Saiz.

The three names — Enchanted Hill, Sundance or Foothill Elementary — came from a list of 30 names generated by an 11-person committee that included Saiz, who served as committee chair, the new school's principal, Mildred Chavez, and 10 community members chosen by the school board.

"The committee members solicited input from community members and took time to talk to community members," said Saiz. "They came up with the names, then we voted and came up with the final three names by consensus."

Saiz said the names each have significance to the site of the school, just below El Cerro de Los Lunas in the Huning Ranch development.

"Some felt Enchanted Hill was appropriate being that it's beneath the Los Lunas Hill, and there are old stories about that hill that have some mysterious, enchanted background," he said. "Second, Sundance, somebody on the committee said you can see the sun dancing off the hills there. The last was Foothill Elementary because (the school is) at the foothills where people hike."

Los Lunas citizens who want to vote on-line can do so by going to the Los Lunas Schools Web site, www.llschools.net, and clicking on the link that will take them to the voting page.

The voting marks the IP address of each computer, so the on-line voting will be limited to one vote per household, unless the citizens have multiple computers in their homes.

Paper ballot voting can be done at Katherine Gallegos Elementary starting Monday.

Votes will be taken until Friday, Nov. 23, at noon.

The results of the vote will then be tabulated and presented to the school board during its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 27. The school board will give final approval to the name.

Some Los Lunas schools are named for former educators or local heroes, such as Daniel Fernandez, who earned the Medal of Honor during the war in Vietnam. More recently, schools have been given names such as Desert View that described their geographic location.

Saiz said the committee considered three names of local individuals, but none had enough votes to make the final three.

"It's a double-edged sword if you name a school after prominent people or historical figures," Saiz said. "They're always honored by that type of recognition, but there's always someone in the community that had equal standing or did something great themselves and people get offended when one name is selected over another.

"I think the committee took that into consideration, and it was discussed, but in the end, it was decided that the best thing would be to name it after an non-animate object," Saiz said.

He said the name was an important part of getting students and parents to connect with the new school and create a community around it.

"Within the near future, the construction is going to start, and we just wanted a presence for the school and for it to have a name so people would know where their children were going to go and begin to have pride in that."

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