November 2024

Fall Fiesta

Thank you to all who joined us for Fall Fiesta this year! We welcomed over 1,000 guests to campus for a magical evening under the cottonwoods!

The event could not have been possible without our incredible supporters and volunteers, and we are so grateful for the contributions of our sponsors!

We also want to extend our thanks to the almost 200 parents and guardians, staffulty members, students, trustees, and friends who volunteered their time to help run games, assist with the attractions, run check-in, sell tickets, and provide setup support. We truly could not have done it without you!

Together, along with sponsorships, ticket sales, in-kind donations, and other contributions, Fall Fiesta raised over $50,000 for the Bosque Fund in support of our students, programs, and mission. THANK YOU!

Bosque School at Thirty

In a recent interview, founder Peggie Ann Findlay was asked about the daunting task of starting Bosque School back in 1994, and she said, “I surrounded myself with people who were able to do the things that needed to be done and that I didn’t know how to do.” Thirty years later, that community-based strategy continues to inform the still daunting task of educating young people for the future. Thirty years ago, the internet was a communications experiment that was happening in university and government settings. Thirty years ago, cell phones were the size of bricks, and few people owned or used them. No one streamed anything. There was no such thing as social media. The only way to buy a book was to visit a bookstore.

So Peggie gathered people together by calling them on landlines or perhaps sending them a note in the mail, people who believed there was a need in Albuquerque for another independent school. They sat around her dining room table and dreamed of “sticking their necks out” to build a school from scratch. Dreaming might be free, but buildings, teachers, and books all cost money, so “we needed people’s confidence and trust, and we needed to raise money.” That night, she asked the folks at the table to reveal how much money each was willing to pledge to an initial fundraising effort. She gave them each a slip of paper and told them to write down a figure. “Unless we can raise $10,000 tonight, among ourselves,” she said, “we won’t be able to continue.” She passed around a bowl to collect the folded promises and totaled them up — $12,000, more than enough.

Register Today! It Takes A Village Day

We are very excited to welcome our community back to campus for Bosque School’s annual It Takes a Village Day on Tuesday, November 26, 8:00 – 11:00 am. We all know that it takes a village to raise a child, so we are extending the invitation to all of the significant adults — parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents, coaches, former teachers, etc. — who have helped support, encourage, and nurture our students in their success and development to join us for a morning of community, connection, and gratitude. Registration information will be available soon, so mark your calendars and save the date. We can’t wait to see you all then! If you have any questions, please reach out to philanthropy@bosqueschool.org.

Alumni Holiday Party- Save the date

SAVE THE DATE! November signals the start of the holiday season, and with that, we want to share the date for our 2024 Alumni Holiday Party! When: December 20, 2024, from 6:00 - 9:00 pm Where: 4000 Bosque School Rd. NW in Budagher Hall Registration details will be shared in the coming weeks, so mark your calendars and invite your Bosque classmates! We can't wait to see you!

Bosque Students Youngest Presenters at National Wildlife Society Conference

Two Bosque School students, seniors Lelia and Ada, and two Bosque School alumni, Eliot and Mary, recently made an important trip to Baltimore, where they presented their research at the National Wildlife Society Conference. Field and Community Science teacher Kim Fike observed that as the youngest presenters at an event attended by undergraduates, graduate students, professors, and seasoned professionals, the students met a high standard in their field, with research that was on par with the older presenters.

Ada remarked that “being the youngest person at a national conference can be incredibly intimidating, and I definitely felt nervous trying to talk with and meet people, but I found that it was easier than I thought to step out of my comfort zone because everyone was so nice. This experience has taught me how to communicate and advocate for myself, which are skills I will use for the rest of my life.”

Power and Politics

Do people control power, or does power control people? What do we need from our government? What are the dimensions of power, and what are the various types of justice? The Comparative Politics class, taught by Humanities teacher Amy Moore, has been asking these questions to analyze the nature of power and its role in society. The semester began with reading ancient political philosophers' thoughts on power, which led to the study of the evolution of the civil rights movement, from civil disobedience to the Black Power Movement. This work culminated in a visit to The New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum. The Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators, which took place throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945, provides a horrific example of how power can be manifested for evil. At the museum, the students were able to visit with and listen to a talk from a Holocaust survivor. He spoke of his experience as a hidden child and literally discussed how the Nazi use of the dimensions of power impacted his life.

Bosque Students Advocate for the Right to Read

September 22-28 was National Banned Books Week, and Bosque School students came together to stand up for the right to read. They wrote a letter and sent a petition to District 44 Representative Kathleen Cates, who authored HB 123, which was a bill to guard against book banning in New Mexico. The bill never made it to the floor for a vote last year, so Bosque School students sent a letter to voice their belief that reading is key to cultivating a free-thinking and empathetic society and encouraged her to reinvigorate the bill for this year’s legislative session. The impetus for the project sprung from junior Rowan’s research paper on book banning in New Mexico, which he wrote in the Banned Books Special Topics course last spring. Bosque School’s students’ advocacy falls in line with several states that have already passed anti-banning laws, including Illinois, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland, Vermont, and Washington.

Aside from activist efforts, students have been checking out books from the banned books exhibit in the library. Junior Sophia, who also took the Banned Books class, has been reading banned titles during her free time. She said, “Banned books make me think about things I might not know about otherwise. They expand my perspective. Plus, they’re really good.”

Celebrate the freedom to read, and check out a banned book today!

Eighth-Grade Outdoor Adventure!

This fall, a group of Bosque School 8th graders headed into the Pecos Wilderness for two nights of camping in the high country! The group started at Jack’s Creek Trailhead and set up camp four and a half miles in at Jack’s Creek. From this base camp, students explored the surrounding area and even climbed up to East Pecos Baldy Lake, which sits at a spectacular 12,000 feet. The trip helped students develop a healthy expedition mentality and optimize teamwork. They learned about backcountry cooking and water purification and engaged in Leave No Trace practices. A group highlight of the trip was an improvised baseball game in a field near camp. Using a stick as a bat and a pinecone for a baseball, all the students participated, only ending the game reluctantly when the adults had to call them in for dinner. Overall, this was a great step toward continuing to build out Bosque’s Outdoor Adventure program to make it accessible and meaningful to all students.

ROBOTICS TEAM PREPARES FOR HIGH STAKES CHALLENGE

The Bosque School competitive robotics team members are deep in the process of building robots for this year's Vex V5 game, "High Stakes," and their first contest against other schools was at the end of October.

This year, the team is building robots that pick up plastic donuts from the ground, drive the donuts across an arena, and stack them on a pedestal. The robots also must defend their pedestals from other teams and unstack the pedestals of their opponents, creating lots of opportunities for creative robotics engineering.

Bosque School Accolades

Bosque School senior Miquela honored at Congressional Art Competition!

Each spring, the Congressional Institute hosts a nationwide high school visual art competition aimed at recognizing and encouraging artistic talent across the country and within each congressional district. Since it started in 1982, the Artistic Discovery competition has seen participation from over 650,000 high school students.

Charles S. has been named a Commended Student

Of the 3.7 million students who took the 2023 PSAT qualifying test, only 34,000 earned this distinction. In honoring these high-achieving students, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation wrote that “recognizing their accomplishments, as well as the key role their schools play in their academic development, is vital to the advancement of educational excellence in our nation.” Congratulations, Charles!

Cheyenne Honored at the White House

"Being at the White House with First Lady Jill Biden, among other smart, dedicated young women making a difference around the country, was an honor. This is what it means to be seen for our uniquenesses. To all the other New Mexico girls leading change and making a difference in their own communities, remember to speak your truths. Tell your stories. Don’t step down." - Cheyenne A.

Gael Takes on Engineering Challenges at UNM’s Summer Academy

Bosque School sophomore Gael was selected to participate in the 2024 Engineering and Computing Summer Academy, hosted by the University of New Mexico's School of Engineering, Engineering Student Success. Over the course of four weeks, Gael engaged in a series of STEM-related seminars and workshops, along with personal enrichment and college preparation activities.

Next-Gen Driverless Cars Hit the Road in Physics Class

The shortage of mouse-sized racecar drivers didn’t deter a recent group of Mike St. John’s physics students, who applied the engineering design process (EDP) to harness the forces required to propel their cars as far, fast, and safely as their design allowed. The lab incorporated five motion-related physics topics: Newton’s laws, conservation of energy, simple machine design, spring constant, and rotational motion. A thorough understanding of these topics, plus the use of EDP for continual assessment and improvement of the car design, allowed the students to see the way energy was conserved and expended as well as how small mechanical design changes could have a big impact on their car’s performance and range. The cars aren’t quite ready for Formula One races, but they definitely tore up the track in St. John’s physics lab.

A Shoebox of Stories: Students Explore Their Heritage Through Dioramas

Could you fit your family history into a shoebox? That was the challenge students in Maria Clara Rekow’s Spanish class faced recently as they built dioramas about their ancestry. Students interviewed family members, wrote about their heritage, and created family trees whose roots reached into Europe, Africa, and, of course, across America and deep into New Mexico.

The project required practicing past tense and other verb conjugations, as well as effective sentence and paragraph structure. Sophomore Sebastian explained, "I chose to do both sides of my family — the history of slavery in Mississippi and also the hundreds of years of history that my family has had here in New Mexico. I never really knew much of my history because it's hard to find information about African American families past 1865, but I wanted to try to find a little more past that." Luca ‘27 focused on the last time all his extended family, whose roots are in Italy, was together and his memories of that special gathering. These dioramas are packed with each family’s life — past and present — and students agreed the project was both a wonderful personal learning experience and a satisfying way to improve their Spanish speaking and writing skills.

Bee Club Creates a Buzz with State Fair Win

The Bosque School Bee Club meets every Friday at the Bosque School Bee yard to assess general hive health, teach students and faculty how to safely work with honeybees, and learn about the benefits of bees in agriculture. Last summer, students entered the products they created from the hive into the 2024 New Mexico State Fair and won first prizes in honey, comb honey, beeswax products for lip balm, and beeswax products without additives for their dipped beeswax candles.

The Bee Cause and Whole Kids Foundation have generously funded the bee colonies, suits, and equipment used by the club. Students designed and built the Bosque School apiary during the Bosque School Environmental Architecture Immersive in 2023. The unique design includes found wood from the bosque, special stands for the bee hives, a home for native bees, and a place for planting flowering plants to help feed honeybees.

Bobcat Highlight

Josie K. shares her experiences at Bosque School, highlighting her favorite class, memorable projects, and extracurricular activities. From her enthusiasm for 9th-grade humanities to her passion for soccer, Josie provides insight into how the school's community fosters growth and connection. Read on for a deeper look into her journey!