Darlene Fortier and fellow Santa Fe Public Schools officials help hand out more than 1,200 bags of free school supplies to students and their families Wednesday.
Hundreds of cars line Yucca Street as Santa Fe Public Schools officials helped hand out more than 1,200 bags to students and their families Wednesday at Santa Fe High School.
Amber Reynolds, right, scrambles to keep tables stocked with supplies Wednesday as Santa Fe Public Schools officials hand out free school supplies to students and their families.
Aiden Gomez, 3, and his father, Guadalupe Gomez, keep an eye on the long line of cars as Santa Fe Public Schools officials hand out school supplies at Santa Fe High.
Darlene Fortier and fellow Santa Fe Public Schools officials help hand out more than 1,200 bags of free school supplies to students and their families Wednesday.
Aiden Gomez, 3, and his father, Guadalupe Gomez, keep an eye on the long line of cars as Santa Fe Public Schools officials hand out school supplies at Santa Fe High.
School may not be in session, but a line of cars stretched down Yucca Street from the entrance of Santa Fe High School on Wednesday morning.
And Marcella Martinez’s car was the first in line.
Grandma to two students headed back to Santa Fe Public Schools next week — one starting seventh grade; the other, first grade — Martinez said she was warned there might be a crowd as the school district, in partnership with State Employees Credit Union, gave away 1,280 bags of school supplies to students and families from across the district.
So, in classic grandmotherly fashion, she packed the car with snacks and entertainment, drove to Santa Fe High’s parking lot before 8 a.m., and prepared to wait at least an hour at the entrance.
Hundreds of cars line Yucca Street as Santa Fe Public Schools officials helped hand out more than 1,200 bags to students and their families Wednesday at Santa Fe High School.
In many ways, the effort is the de facto kickoff to the school year, with officials hoping to relieve families from some of the financial and logistical burdens of equipping kids for a return to classes, said Santa Fe school board member Sarah Boses. The first day of school in Santa Fe is Aug. 9.
“It’s a stressful time of year for parents and families. … We just want to make things easier and make sure that kids are prepared on the first day of school,” Boses said as she passed out bags of supplies.
A massive school supply giveaway can’t be organized in a day — and Ruth Perez knows it.
As event and engagement specialist in Santa Fe Public Schools’ Equity and Inclusion Department, she spent eight weeks — pretty much all of the district’s summer break — gathering needed materials and checking with teachers and principals to ensure the district was giving away what their students would need.
It took Perez’s team six days of warehouse work to pack all 1,280 giveaway bags, differentiating them by grade level.
Amber Reynolds, right, scrambles to keep tables stocked with supplies Wednesday as Santa Fe Public Schools officials hand out free school supplies to students and their families.
Santa Fe Public Schools’ younger students received palettes of watercolor paints, boxes of crayons and bottles of school glue. The older kids got rulers, protractors, highlighters and sets of colorful permanent markers.
But Perez said the priority was to ensure every bag came with paper and writing utensils to ensure students have the supplies to do their homework at home.
That’s not a given in Santa Fe Public Schools, which serves about 11,000 students across the city. Twenty-one of the district’s 28 schools have been identified by the federal government as serving high populations of low-income students.
Perez said she has seen the need firsthand. While working as an educational assistant at a student’s home in 2020, Perez asked her student to get something to write with. The student responded she didn’t have anything at home, Perez recalled.
So, every bag Santa Fe Public Schools gave away Wednesday included pencils, pens and notebooks. There were even boxes of extra-thick pencils available for kindergartners who haven’t yet grasped how to hold a pencil.
“Part of the idea is that we’re supporting the teachers by making sure their students have supplies as well as making sure students have the tools they need to complete assignments at home,” Perez said.
District officials opened Santa Fe High’s gates to the drivers awaiting supplies right around 9 a.m. By that time, the line of drivers stretched all the way down Yucca Street and turned onto West Zia Road, extending almost to Early College Opportunities High School.
The cars snaked through Santa Fe High’s parking lot. After staff confirmed their students were registered with the district, drivers navigated toward pick-up stations, where district officials passed bags of school supplies through car windows.
Boses helped staff one of those stations Wednesday morning.
“If we can help kids feel more comfortable on the first day of school and like they have everything they need, then that’s helping them get off on the right foot to a good school year,” she said.
