Tobe Turpen teacher placed on leave
School officials mum

Turpen Elementary School staff had a closed door meeting with Gallup McKinley County schools Superintendent Karen White on Monday after school in the library. Turpen's principal, Esther Macias, was not at the meeting. [Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A teacher at Tobe Turpen's Elementary School has been put on administrative leave, apparently over questions about how the school conducts its testing program.

On Monday, Tim Nelson was told to report to the office and turn in his keys and then leave the building. Karen White, superintendent of the Gallup-McKinley County School District, said she could not comment on what was happening at the school because it concerned personnel matters.

Many of the teachers at the school, however, who spoke on condition that their name not be used, said the action apparently stems from problems of the testing program.

There have been concerns by the Central Office that answers to tests given to record improvement by the students may have been changed to give students higher marks and therefore give the school higher marks.

Teachers said that the central office recently began a program of delivering the tests in the morning and then gathering them up as soon as the tests were done and sealing them in a box so they could not be tampered with.

Nelson is the test coordinator, but some teachers said the problem may not be with the tests but rather with problems that have been brewing within the school for months over differences between the younger, less experienced teachers and the more experienced ones.

A series of grievances have been filed by teachers in one group against teachers in the other and some feel that this may have been the reason for the recent disciplinary action.

It may also have had something to do with a staff meeting that was held last Friday.

On Monday, the teachers were told to report to another meeting, this one held by White. The school's principal, Esther Macias, was told that she did not have to attend and she didn't.

At the meeting, teachers were told not to talk to the press about what was going on within the school.

White also asked the teachers who had attended Friday's meeting to write down everything they recollected about what happened during that meeting.

Several teachers spoke out after the meeting saying they were in total support of Nelson and Macias and wondered if Macias' days as principal of the school were numbered.

If it was, one teacher said, it was because of this feud going on between the teacher groups and the fact that several of the younger teachers had been complaining about Macias.

The more experienced teachers in the school are supporting Macias, saying that since she has gotten there, the situation has become a lot better and that the younger teachers may not like her efforts to instill some sort of discipline among staff members by setting down rules.