Free entry to Socorro games approved by school board

Socorro School games will soon be free for families, students, and community members to attend.

At its Oct. 6 meeting the Socorro School Board unanimously voted to approve a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Opioid Remediation Collaborative (ORC) who would buy out athletic tickets for the rest of the school year.

County Manager Andy Lotrich who presented the MOU said the ORC would provide the district with $50,150.06, which he said is the equivalent to their highest gate sales over the last three years. He said the school will receive the funds up front, with no restrictions on use and in return, ORC would make announcements about its work and reminders to stay opioid-free at games.

“What this program is designed to do is we’re not only providing tickets for your students, those tickets will be for your parents and the entire community as a whole, because what we would rather have is wholesome activities for everybody to go to and be part of rather than sitting at home where the likelihood of more opioid use is going to be occurring.” Lotrich said, “So come basketball season, wrestling season, the end of soccer season, we hope to be able to fill fans back into the stands.”

The ORC is a group of seven New Mexico counties that was developed in response to the opioid legal settlement with pharmaceutical companies identified as being involved in the opioid crisis. The ORC comprises Catron, Cibola, Guadalupe, Hidalgo, Sierra, Socorro and Valencia counties. According to their website, the idea is to have an alliance pool for their settlement funds and develop a comprehensive treatment system to address the opioid crisis.

Lotrich later confirmed that the MOU has also been offered to the Magdalena and Alamo school districts.

Autism

Superintendent Joyce Gormley, in her report, told the school board about recent district visits to autism centers in Lovington and Rio Rancho. She said both facilities were impressive and she would like to implement similar programming at Parkview Elementary.

“With an increase of students with autism in our district, we really want to look at doing something that serves that group of students’ particular needs. And so it was good to get that comparison and kind of be able to see the best of both worlds, both centers and both facilities did such an amazing job, I got emotional,” Gormley said.

She said they are still gathering information and ideas right now on how to implement more support for staff, families and students with autism.

“I think it’s a definite need in our district, and so I’m excited about that offering,” Gormley said.

Tara Jaramillo said she was in awe and inspired and supported the district in moving forward.

“I am so impressed and taken aback. As many of you know my oldest daughter has autism, and I remember her diagnosis was extremely difficult, and she was five years nonverbal, and finding a place for her was very difficult,” Jaramillo said, “I’m so excited to see the schools doing this.”

Board member David Hicks asked about the number of autistic students in the district. Gormley estimated at least four pre-K and four kindergarten students, with additional students in the evaluation process and recent new diagnoses in second and fourth grades. It was estimated the district had upwards of 20 students identified with autism.

The next school board meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 20.