As New Mexico’s leading organization advocating for charter schools is paving the way for Waldorf education to return to Santa Fe this fall through a $2 million grant, the Trump Administration’s current plans for the Department of Education cloud the future for the funding that makes creating alternative schools possible.
This year, the Public Charter Schools of New Mexico has awarded grants to seven charter schools statewide, with $2 million going to the Sun Mountain Community School. If the school meets all the requirements set by the Public Education Commission when they approved the initial application last year, it could open this fall.
Zoe Wilcox, one of the school’s founders, tells SFR they are “so grateful” for the Charter School Program grant.
“All of the requirements to make a school safe, to be prepared on the first day for the students to come in, it requires finances to do that,” Wilcox says. “It would be impossible to open without the CSP grant.”
The Sun Mountain Community School is a proposed school that would re-introduce Waldorf education to the Santa Fe community as a public charter school, after a previously-existing private Waldorf school unexpectedly shut down before the start of the 2023-2-24 school year.
The Sun Mountain Community School, like all Waldorf schools, would use the hands-on, outdoor learning and imagination-centered education philosophy of 19th-century philosopher and occultist Rudolf Steiner, adapted to fit the state education standards.
Matthew Pahl, the Public Charter Schools of New Mexico’s executive director, tells SFR the grant would help with foundational expenses new schools face. The funding cannot be used to buy a building or construct a school, but could be used for staff, technology, furniture, curriculum work and communications to get the word out about the new school.
“This really helps allow them to have full-time staff to be working on curriculum and all the things that they would need to be opening the school that following fall,” Pahl says, adding that Thrive Community School, another charter school in Santa Fe, received a similar grant to expand the school.
In August last year, the Public Education Commission listed one major concern for the Sun Mountain Community School when approving the application: they felt the school had not yet succeeded at reaching out to Santa Feans outside of the alumni and families who attended the previous private school.
Nearly six months into its required implementation year, the Sun Mountain Community School’s outreach to the wider Santa Fe community has grown.
According to Wilcox, the planning year has been “fantastic.”
“We have a robust list of applicants for our lottery,” Wilcox tells SFR.
As of Feb. 7, the school has received 177 applications through the lottery process, exceeding the school’s student capacity of 132 for its opening year. Wilcox says the school also held a meeting for school administrators and teachers who may be interested in working for the school, which had about 30 attendees.
The school has also hosted several public school board meetings, music classes and storytelling events to engage local families since last fall.
“Having a core of a community already there, I have to say, they've done a really good job of reaching out to other parts of Santa Fe that can now benefit from the school being a public school without tuition,” Pahl says of the school’s ongoing outreach efforts. “I see that they've really reached out to those parts of town that otherwise didn't have access to the Waldorf school that was previously there.”
Sun Mountain Community School is continuing to accept lottery applications for students in grades K-4 and 6 for the upcoming school year. Within a few years, the school plans to expand to serve students in grades K-8. The school will be hosting a “lottery pull party” at 2 pm Feb. 28 at the former Waldorf School campus, according to its website’s timeline for this year.
One concern the Sun Mountain Community School—and all other charter schools in New Mexico that depend on grant funding—has is that the Charter School Program grant is funded by the US Department of Education. Since last year, President Donald Trump has declared his intention to dismantle the department or severely cut the department’s staff and funding.
A recent report from the Associated Press states Trump is finalizing an executive order to direct his education chief to “start winding down the agency” but urge Congress to pass a measure abolishing it, as he cannot simply abolish the department himself through executive order.
When asked about the possibility of losing grant funding, both Wilcox and Pahl say they are confident this year’s funding is safe because the Public Charter Schools of New Mexico has already received its funding for this year.
“I can't live with that fear, because I go to work every day and create a school all day long, and so I trust our legislators to be protecting that money,” Wilcox says. ““I don't even want to explore the ‘What-ifs’ because they would be pretty tragic.”
Pahl says since they have received their annual funds, they believe they have and would be able to spend grant money this year, but the concerns the Public Charter Schools of New Mexico has are about the Department of Education’s commitment to the full grant amount.
In 2023, the Department of Education awarded the organization a $52.7 million grant to be paid over the course of five years, supporting the development, expansion and replication of charter schools in New Mexico.
But if the Department of Education were to face extreme budget cuts or complete eradication in the future, Pahl says aspiring charter schools in New Mexico “would have to find a way to do all the work that it takes to start up a brand new public school in that planning year without much in the way of financial support.”
“They would certainly feel the bite of not having access to these kinds of grants, should we ever be in a place where we don’t have them,” Pahl says.
Typically, he says the state has one or two new charter schools every year, all of which typically apply for the Charter School Program grant. However, the organization has received between a dozen and 20 applications from already-existing charter schools to expand programming during the two grant cycles the organization has run so far.
“We're going to just continue to execute on the plan that we submitted to [the Department of Education], until we hear otherwise,” Pahl says.
The Sun Mountain Community School will be hosting another open house event for interested families on Feb. 15, with a storytelling event to follow. Wilcox says the school will have two local storytellers, Regina Ress and Ehren Kee Natay.
Natay, a Facebook post about the event says, is a Santa Fean artist, musician, and storyteller who “shares powerful narratives that celebrate the rich traditions and histories” of his Diné and Kewa Pueblo heritage through storytelling and cultural education.
More Information
Open House & Storytelling: On Saturday (Feb. 15) from 2-4:30 pm, Sun Mountain Community School, 26 Puesta Del Sol, will host a free open house takes place between 2-3 pm, and storytelling starts at 3 pm.
The Lottery Process
As required by state law, all charter schools must participate in a lottery system to enroll its students. The lottery process intends to eliminate any real or perceived unfairness in a charter school’s admission process by preventing discrimination based on disability, race, gender or sexuality, religion and more.
The Sun Mountain Community School, in accordance with state law, only asks those who apply to the school to provide parent contact information, the student’s first and last name, the student’s birthday and what grade the student would be entering. Families applying with more than one child are to fill out separate applications for each student.
In the lottery process, applications are drawn at random until every spot in each grade is filled to capacity. If one grade is full and a student from that grade is drawn next in the lottery, the student will be placed on a wait list in case a spot in that grade opens up. If there are still vacant spots for any grades at the end of the drawing, the school will open another lottery cycle until all spots are full.
According to its website, the Sun Mountain Community School only gives preference to children of staff members, families in active military duty and siblings of admitted students.
Wilcox says the Sun Mountain Community School will be hosting a “lottery pull party” at its campus at 2 pm on Feb. 28, and families are encouraged to apply through its website at any time prior to the party.
Click here to find an application to Sun Mountain Community School.
