Financial woes force Academy for Sciences and Mathematics to close

Saddened students begin search for new schools

Anne Constable | The New Mexican

5/12/2008 - 5/13/08

Talk about bittersweet. Just as the New Mexico Academy for Sciences and Mathematics was celebrating new academic honors and a vote of confidence from a major accrediting agency, the board, meeting last week, decided to close the school.

"We held out hope to the very end," explained John Redd, chairman of the board.

But after a potential funding agency decided not to support the school anymore, he said, "The course we had to take was clear."

Although many of her classmates were already searching for new schools for the fall, the announcement still came as a shock to seventh-grader Zoe Gibson. "We were all so hoping we would be able to sustain ourselves," she said.

The academy, founded by Fernando Multedo and his wife, Molly, in 1998, has been teetering financially, at least since the Multedos left for Brazil in December 2006, turning the operation of the school over to a board of parents. Without the regular infusion of cash from the Multedos, the financial situation worsened.

Earlier this year, teachers worked for three weeks without being certain they would be paid. More than a month ago, the school warned parents in an e-mail that the future was insecure and they should make other plans for their children. Admissions officers from Santa Fe Prep, Desert Academy and Santa Fe High School were invited to visit the campus and talk to students. Classes ended last week, about two weeks early.

Lise Hilboldt said she and other board members hoped that if they could raise $200,000 to pay faculty over the summer, they could assure prospective families that the school would continue and would be able to recruit new students for the next academic year.

If that had happened, "We would have, I believe, survived," said Hilboldt, mother of a seventh-grader.

Hilboldt's husband, Dick Stolley, said his wife and others were "shaking every tree in town to get the funds to keep going."

But, as Judith Warner, art teacher and a former administrator, said, "Too many people who had contributed in the past were alienated and were a little reticent."

When the Multedos were running the school, they did not build financial support in the community, and tuition simply didn't cover the bills. Of the 47 students, 45 percent are on scholarships. So, even though Frank Matthews, Molly Multedo's father and owner of the property, was not cashing the academy's rent checks, the school was seriously underfunded.

Kenneth O'Bryhim, who succeeded Multedo as headmaster, worked hard to keep the academy afloat, but "they didn't find the two or three angels they needed," said Jeffrey Laing, a longtime member of the faculty.

Throughout its history, the academy has been known to outsiders primarily because of Multedo's volatile nature and eccentric personality. During his tenure, he had run-ins with many parents over discipline and other matters and summarily kicked some of their children out of the school. This drama often obscured the successes in the classroom.

Since O'Bryhim took over — and moved his desk into the library where students had complete access to him — the drama has decreased while the rigorous academic focus has continued to produce significant results.

In the last month or so, for example:

• Five of the graduating seniors received scholarship offers totaling $1.6 million; two students plan to enter Stanford University in the fall on scholarships.

• About 10 days ago, the academy was notified that it had received an unrestricted five-year accreditation from AdvancedED, an international accrediting organization. The quality assurance review team commended the school for its "clear and powerful focus on student performance that permeates all levels of the organization" and for a curriculum that "equips students to approach the world with skills for solving global challenges."

• Four of the seven graduating seniors — Sarah Cantor, Stewart Youngblood, Erica Silva and Andrey Lyubovestsky— were named 2008 Super Scholars.

• The academy's Carlos Santistevan was named Santa Fe's outstanding teacher of math and science by the Santa Fe Institute, and Cantor was honored for her achievement in math and science.

Many families said they were heartbroken over the announcement that the academy will close.

Hilboldt said her son Charlie, who prefers sports to the classroom, was finally happy after moving to Santa Fe. What she liked about the school, she said, was, "Nobody falls through the cracks" even though "a lot weren't academic whizzes when they started."

"We're very disappointed and saddened," said Iris Klimczuk, mother of a seventh-grader and a ninth-grader who started at the academy in January.

Klimczuk said her daughters have been enrolled in all sorts of schools — public, private, single sex — in the U.S. and abroad and with each experienced frustration. "We were thrilled to find the academy. We felt like we had finally found a school our children could thrive in with small classes, in-depth (courses) and teachers who cared."

Klimczuk's ninth-grader, Caroline, 14, said most of the dozen or so schools she's attended were "pretty unpleasant experiences." "I slogged through, but they sucked me of the energy and will to do other things."

At the academy, she said, "I finally found a school I liked and enjoyed. It's not perfect, but it was the best. Everybody was comfortable with each other. There were great teachers. They were passionate about what they were teaching and they instilled that passion in us."

Gibson, who previously attended Wood Gormley Elementary School, agreed. "It was extremely small, which provided a lot of individual attention. Teachers were always around to talk to. And even the seventh-graders got to know everybody."

Laing, a 38-year veteran of teaching, said, "I'm saddened by the whole thing. ... There are some kids who need special attention to do well, even in places that would not seem to be so big."

Warner, who was there at the beginning, conceded, "Over the years, a lot of the negative overshadowed what good was being done there. Those of us working there understood what the school was about and the academic excellence that happened."

The academy, she pointed out, "served students who would have been otherwise overlooked. Many were good students who could not afford tuition at other private schools and did not qualify for merit scholarships. Others were highly intelligent underachievers whose parents knew their potential and wanted a school that would support their children academically and socially. And we served high achievers who felt out of place in other schools."

Several months ago, Matthews, a Nebraska attorney, put the school's 26-acre property on Old Santa Fe Trail near El Gancho on the market for $9.7 million. Several different groups, including a contingent from the Savannah College of Art and Design, which has been pondering an alliance with the College of Santa Fe, looked at the property.

The boards of the New Mexico Academy and Desert Academy talked about a partnership that would allow the two institutions to develop a state-of-the-art campus that included a library, swimming pool, fine arts center and science laboratory. But those negotiations fell apart.

The academy also contacted the Catholic Church about the possibility of leasing the old Cristo Rey Elementary School, but the proposed rent was too expensive.

Some are still holding out hope. "The phoenix will rise from the ashes," O'Bryhim said.

"I still feel somewhere inside me it's not over," Gibson said.

Armed with the accreditation and the school's nonprofit status, Laing said he could foresee a "storefront" version of the academy.

Whether or not that happens, Redd said, "The niche for the school is going to exist in Northern New Mexico whether the school is open or not. The need for high-quality science and math education for children of all educational and social backgrounds is going to be just as important next year as this year. That's what's sad."

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.