On behalf of the wonderful Helen Cordero Primary School Staff, we welcome you to our school community and look forward to a successful school year. We are pleased to partner with you to ensure academic success for all our students. When family and school work together toward high expectations for student achievement and behaviors, students demonstrate greater success as positive and confident learners.
Our school opened in August 2009 and is one of the first LEED certified public schools in New Mexico. The school includes sustainable technology in many ways, including: new long-life roofing technology, water-efficient plumbing design, high-efficiency building envelope, and a geothermal field to reduce heating and cooling costs.
We look forward to working together as partners in learning! Thank you for sharing your children with us.
The school was named after well-known original artist, Cochiti Pueblo Potter, Helen Cordero. Helen Cordero, born in 1915 at Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico, is known for Storyteller pottery.
After trying her hand at one of the traditional figurine forms, a seated female figure holding a child, known as the Singing Mother, she was reminded of her grandfather (Santiago Quintana). When she shaped the first portrait of her paternal grandfather, she used the traditional design but made the figure male and placed more than a realistic number of children on him. She called him Storyteller.
“To make good potteries, you have to do it the right way, the old way, and you have to have a special happy feeling inside. All my potteries come out of my heart. I talk to them. They’re my little people, not just pretty things that I make for money.” -Helen Cordero
Helen Cordero also made mother turtle figurines with children on their backs. According to Helen Cordero, a Cochiti legend states that in time of turmoil or trouble, Mother Turtle will come to the pueblo and rescue the children.
Spanish-speaking and English-speaking students combined in the same educational environment to provide communicative and academic language development through an interactive and cross-cultural setting.
Core content areas are taught in both Spanish and English, equally. First language Spanish and English Literacy are taught in 1st and 2nd grades depending on the needs of the students.
The ultimate goal of a dual language model is to develop a Pre-K to 12th grade and beyond sequence, for truly fluent, balanced bilingualism in academic and social settings.