City council recognizes student efforts

Staff Writer

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The Portales city councilors recognized the recent efforts of students of Portales High School and Portales Junior High School at their meeting on Tuesday.

Portales Municipal Schools Superintendent Johnnie Cain introduced the students.

Staff photo: Eamon Scarbrough

The Portales Junior High School Future Farmers of America Opening Ceremony team provides a demonstration for the Portales City Council on Tuesday night.

“Over time, we know that you recognize a lot of our athletic teams as they do well and excel in their sports, but a big part of what we do in school is education and academics, so we decided that we really wanted to start tooting our horn a little more and the horns of our students as they achieve things in academics and gain recognition throughout the state,” Cain said.

The first group, the PJHS Future Farmers of America Opening Ceremony Team, recently achieved third place at the state FFA competition in Albuquerque.

The team’s sponsor, PJHS agriculture teacher Morgan Arguello, introduced the students, prompting them to begin their demonstration.

The team sat at their own meeting table and conducted an intricate role call in which all of its members were present. Members including the treasurer, secretary and president described their positions before adjourning the simulated meeting.

The council thanked the students for their demonstration and congratulated them on their success at state.

Cain then invited Henry Montano, director of federal programs for Portales Municipal Schools, to the podium to introduce Maria Pedroza-Romo, who recently served in the ENLACE Legislative Internship Program.

“I think it was a wonderful experience for her. We’ve been doing this for several years now, and all the kids who come back talk about what they learned as far as our state government,” Montano said as he invited Pedroza-Romo to read an essay she had written about her experience at the legislative session.

She spoke in detail about shadowing Rep. Deborah Armstrong and assisting committees in the process of making bills into laws.

“ENLACE, the organization sponsoring the internship, did a great job making us feel a part of the whole environment. ENLACE really does what the name represents. It engages Latino students and communities for education,” she said. “Enlace in English means ‘link,’ and it does a great job to link us Latino students to education and helps us excel.”

Councilor Diane Parker, sitting in for Mayor Sharon King, said, “It’s very evident why you were selected as the essay winner, because that was excellent. Thank you so much and good luck to you.”

Recreation Director Jodi Diaz then came before the council to introduce two representatives of ENLACE, Eastern Region Director Sylvia Montano and Higher Education Coordinator Adrian White, who informed the council of ENLACE and its purpose.

According to Montano, ENLACE has been able to serve the Roswell, Clovis and Portales school districts on a budget of only $200,000.

“We provide tutoring, we provide the higher education program, and we also provide the New Mexico Youth Forum, which are conferences that our students go to,” she said.

ENLACE also provides family centers, which act as a resource for parents. The Mexican Consulate also visits the area every three months through ENLACE to provide individuals with passports and ID cards.

According to Montano, eastern New Mexico is the only area in the state that ENLACE funds through a school district.

“We’re very proud of that, because we have linkages with ENMU, Clovis Community College and ENMU Roswell, and we’re able to work with all those entities and experience quite a bit of success with our students,” Montano said.

Henry Montano expressed his appreciation for ENLACE and White in particular.

“He’s (White) there two days a week, and we’d love to have him there every day of the week. He comes on those Thursdays and Fridays, and he’s in his spot in the library,” Montano said. “There’s not a time that you will go there and not find him with a student, advocating, writing essays, teaching them how to present, teaching them how to interview when they’re interviewing for scholarships, calling their parents, guiding them and so forth.”

He also mentioned that ENLACE does not exclusively help Latino students.

“We have a couple of students that are here, they’re Arabic and don’t speak any English at all. Because of ENLACE, we’re able to hire an Eastern student that speaks Arabic to come and work with our two students,” he said. “Now we’re working on another one, because of ENLACE once again, to be able to get one that speaks Mandarin. There’s a lot of services.”