The first claim of the District's resources shall be made for the realization of these priorities.  School dollars, school talent, school time and whatever innovation in program it requires must be concentrated on these top-ranking goals.  No student should be by-passed or left out of the school's efforts to teach the fundamental skills.  Schooling for basic literacy must reach all students, in all communities, and from all homes.

Children need more than literacy.  The schools need to give them opportunity to develop their capacities for thinking, working, creating and gaining satisfaction out of life in his or her own way.

The Española School Board of Education is more concerned with the individual than with the subject matter.  The child should be the center and the focus of the educational resources of the District.  Whether the child is average, gifted, or one requiring special help, the Board confirms the District's intention to serve the child.  This commitment does not look backward; it looks at the child and his/her future.

Our schools cannot take on the burden of solving all of society's problems; the School District cannot spend its resources on challenges which properly belong to the home, family, the work place, religious forces, and other agencies and institutions.  But the School District can and will encourage community participation in the education of its students.

School District employees should inform the community about its limitations as well as it capabilities.  The principal will discourage attitudes among faculty to add ambitious educational programs for the Española School District alone to assume.

Education is al lifelong process; therefore, the educational program will provide both formal studies to meet the general academic needs of all students, and opportunities for individual students to develop specific talents and interests in vocational and other specialized fields, and grow toward independent learning.

The various instructional programs will be developed with the view toward maintaining balanced, integrated and sequentially articulated curricula, which will serve the educational needs of all school aged children in the Española School District.

The Española School Board subscribes to the philosophy that well developed reading, mathematics, science and other basic skills, including ability to spell, speak and write intelligently, are essential in our society.  It will adopt specific  requirements to ensure that our high school graduates are sufficiently competent in these essential skills.

At all levels, provisions will be made for a wide range of individual difference in student abilities, linguistic abilities and learning rate through uses of a variety of materials, adjustments in programs, and courses adapted to special needs of students.

The curriculum will meet these requirements and/or competencies established by state law, the Department and the Local Board of Education.

What primary and secondary school teachers say and do in the classroom is controlled exclusively by the Local and State Boards of Education and educational administrators, and the teacher's instruction is subject to control as to both content and method.