As Matt Martinez shepherded the last few teachers and students off the Sweeney Elementary School playground and onto the sidewalk along South Meadows Road one day a few weeks ago, some Sweeney kids and staff were already arriving at Ortiz Middle School.

Sweeney was conducting an evacuation drill — one that requires the entire school to walk to Ortiz — and the single-file line of more than 700 students and staff stretched nearly half a mile.

Luckily, managing large school populations is nothing new for Martinez, the assistant principal at Sweeney, or Principal Pam De La O. For years Sweeney has been one of the largest elementary schools in Santa Fe, despite serving kids in grades K-5 — sixth graders go to Ortiz.

During the 2007-08 school year, 3,501 of the 7,311 students zoned to attend one of 20 elementary schools in the district were assigned to the five largest campuses. That's about half of all elementary students assigned to a quarter of the schools, an average of about 700 students per school.

All of those schools — Agua Fría, César Chávez, Sweeney, Ramirez Thomas and Piñon — also are in the south and southwest portions of Santa Fe.

In addition to large student populations, those south-side schools also serve many poor, Spanish-speaking students.

The combination provides a string of challenges, ranging from facilities not designed to serve so many students to the need for schools to provide services beyond what many would expect from an educational institution.

Despite the hardships, most people not only say they enjoy working in south-side schools, they wouldn't have it any other way.

Making large schools work

Hanging on a wall in Pam De La O's office at Sweeney is a large, dry-erase board where she keeps track of the teaching staff at her school.

The list is broken up by grade, and under each grade heading are the names of all her teachers, 34 in all, not including educational assistants and special-education teachers. There are seven kindergarten teachers, six teachers for first grade, six for second, five for third, five for fourth and five for fifth.

There are more kindergartners at Sweeney, about 140, than there are students in all grades at Alvord Elementary, a tiny downtown school.

Sweeney's enrollment grew this year by about 100 students to about 680 after the school board voted to rezone some children who used to go to César Chávez Elementary in an effort to ease crowding there.

Crowding in south-side schools is nothing new. The school district has often been late to respond — waiting until schools were bursting at the seams before building a new school.

Sweeney, in fact, was built to serve students who could no longer fit at Piñon. Then César Chávez was built. Then Ramirez Thomas. And now, the planned Amy Biehl at Rancho Viejo Community School is scheduled to open in the fall of 2010.

Officials hope the new school will eliminate the need for 14 portables at Piñon, which has for the last few years been the largest elementary school, with more than 700 students.

Meanwhile, staff and students at large schools are forced to establish strict protocols to handle the masses.

Visit Agua Fría or Piñon or César Chávez when school lets out and you'll see an almost militaristic display of order as teachers direct vehicles and walk kids by the hand to cars. There's usually a bullhorn involved, and within 30 minutes, hundreds of students and dozens of cars have efficiently exited the parking lot.

"When I started here I really was impressed to see how well dismissal times are run," said Anna Vargas Gutierrez, who took over as principal at César Chávez during the holiday break. She used to be principal at Atalaya Elementary School where, she said, things were a little more lax.

A lot of students also means a need for more services. Because all south-side schools are considered Title I schools — all kids get free or reduced breakfast and lunch and the school receives federal funds — they can use those additional funds to pay for nurses or counselors, which non-Title I schools seldom can afford.

But even extra resources can do only so much. Lately, for example, Sheila Henke, a nurse at Agua Fría, has been checking kids' vision. "We have a high percentage of students who need glasses," she said.

Henke is able to tell students how to get glasses, but following up to make sure they actually do it, she said, takes a lot of time and can be overwhelming.

In a lot of ways, said Carmen Delgado, parents look to their schools to provide guidance on all sorts of issues. Delgado has been a counselor at Agua Fría for 20 years.

Teachers and staff at south-side schools stress that although parents aren't as involved as in some other schools, that doesn't mean they don't care. The reason is that often parents work two or three jobs, school officials said, and don't have the same time or resources as other families. But call a parent about an issue with their child, and most will stop what they're doing and try to help in any way they can.

The challenges of bilingual education

Walk into any south-side cafeteria during lunch or while parents are picking up their children and there's one thing you'll notice right away: Most people are speaking Spanish.

In total, 40 percent of all district students are English Language Learners, meaning they speak a language other than English at home. Thousands more speak Spanish, but also are proficient in English.

Most of those ELL and Spanish-speaking students attend south-side elementary, middle and high schools.

For example, in Sonia Rosenberg's ELL kindergarten class at Sweeney, students are taught 90 percent in Spanish and 10 percent in English. The reason, officials say, is that some research shows it is best to become literate in a native language while learning a new language.

In Rosenberg's class one day, students sat on the floor while she demonstrated, in Spanish, how to write the letter G. Instead of using the word grapes, for example, Rosenberg used the word gusano, Spanish for worm.

As they get older and progress through Sweeney, students will learn less in Spanish and more in English.

To be able to use this model of bilingual education, Sweeney needs a highly qualified staff of bilingual teachers. For it, and other schools that serve ELL students, that's not always easy.

De La O will be the first to admit that she got lucky this year in hiring Rosenberg and a few other teachers who were not only certified bilingual teachers but had lots of experience. Despite those finds, she is still short two bilingual teachers.

De La O and Martinez, the Sweeney teacher, both said that better financial incentives could help. The district pays bilingual teachers a $2,500 stipend.

There are some teachers in the district who are certified to teach bilingual classes, but either don't work at schools with ELL populations or don't teach bilingual classes. De La O said those teachers should be more willing to serve where they are needed. "Teachers should either choose (to teach bilingual) or be moved (by the district)," she said.

Both De La O and Martinez acknowledge people consider their school, and others on the south side, to be inferior because of where they're located or because of the population they serve.

New families, for instance, often are concerned when they first put their kids in school. Usually, they find that those worries are unfounded and most stick around, they said.

During the 2007-08 school year, about 73 percent of the students zoned to Sweeney went to the school, which is similar to rates for most elementary schools.

The negative perception is frustrating, they said, but they know there's not much they can do about it.

"For me, it means a lot of work and dedication, but I find it a rewarding experience because I like working with the population," De La O said. "It feels good to live in a south-side school."

Contact John Sena at 986-3079 or jsena@sfnewmexican.com.