The document summarizes a six-week summer program at Trinidad State for high school students from southern Colorado and New Mexico. The program exposes students to college life by having them take classes and live in dorms. It aims to help students who would otherwise not consider college to see it as an option. The program provides independence and responsibility. It receives federal funding and has been successful, with some past participants now considering different college majors they did not previously know about.

1. Thursday, July 16, 2015 Page 3The Chronicle-News Trinidad, Colorado
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SCHOOLSTRINIDAD STATE
High schoolers check out college
Six-week on-campus
summer program just
the ticket for learning
By Greg Boyce
Trinidad State
Special to The Chronicle-News
Leaving home for college is such a big
step, some students drop out and go home
in the first semester. They just didn’t know
what college would really be like. For de-
cades, Trinidad State has tackled that prob-
lem with a live-in summer program aimed
at young people who might not even believe
college is an option.
About 50 teenagers from southern and
western New Mexico and Las Animas
County are in their sixth and final week
of the Math Science Upward Bound Pro-
gram at Trinidad State. About three dozen
of them, who are hundreds of miles from
home, are doing the whole college experi-
ence, including living in residence halls,
and eating cafeteria food. Judy MacLaren,
a Trinidad State chemistry professor, has
headed the program since 1992. “Kids that
come from New Mexico have to do their
own laundry, they get homesick, they miss
their mom’s cooking, so it truly is, more of
an experience away from home for them,”
said MacLaren. “For freshman in college
that’s the number one (problem), they get
homesick and drop out.”
“I was homesick for a while, but now I
don’t want to go back,” laughed Daisy Ar-
talejo of Anthony, New Mexico. She’ll be a
junior in high school in the fall. “I think it
has been a good program because it teaches
you to be independent—you have your own
job, you have your own responsibilities. It
gives you an opportunity to see what it’s
like, being independent.”
Students are recruited through several
methods: Applications are sent to high
school counselors, math and science teach-
ers, presentations are done at schools and
some come from student recommendations.
Almost all the students are either first
generation (meaning neither of their par-
ents have a bachelor’s degree), or they meet
government mandated income require-
ments.
“They do get to meet other kids from
a wider area, just like you would in col-
lege,” said MacLaren. “We’re very strict
with them, which I know doesn’t happen
in college, but when you have fifty, 15 to 18
year olds that you’re responsible for, they
can’t behave the way they do at home. We
have curfews, we have what we call fam-
ily groups. There’s a Resident Advisor as-
signed to 8 to ten kids.
This summer’s classes include Composi-
tion/Literature, Health, Video Yearbook,
Leadership, Test Preparation for the ACT,
Science, Math and even a foreign language.
This year that’s Navajo. That’s helpful for
Myocia Spencer from the Gallup, New Mex-
ico area. She grew up on an Indian Reserva-
tion. “I understand it, I just can’t speak it,”
she said of Navajo. She’ll be a senior in high
school in the fall. This is her third summer
at Trinidad State. “I never thought of going
to college, but after I came here, there’s mul-
tiple choices of colleges I want to go to right
now. I want to go into forensics, or electri-
cal engineering.”
Math Science Upward Bound at Trini-
dad State is in year three of a five-year grant
from the U.S. Department of Education.
The grant is worth about $359,000 a year.
Photos courtesy of Greg BOyce / Trinidad State
Students from the Math Science Upward Bound Program at Trinidad State work in a computer lab
on campus during shool hours. Daisy Artalejo of Anthony, New mexico, far left, and Myocia Spen-
cer from the Gallup, New Mexico area are two of the students who attend the program.
Colorado marijuana tax
for schools hits record,
exceeds 2014 total
Associated Press
DENVER — A year after Colorado’s marijuana tax for
schools came in far short of its goal, the fund is setting re-
cords and has accrued more money in the first five months
in 2015 than it did for all of 2014.
Recently released tax data showed the 15 percent excise
tax for school construction hit $3.5 million in May, the most
recent data available. That brings the 2015 total to $13.7 mil-
lion, edging the $13.3 million it raised in all of 2014.
The jump is partly because there are more marijuana
stores and partly because shops last year were given a one-
time tax-exempt transfer of their medical plants to the rec-
reational pot side, The Denver Post reported.
“It sounds very encouraging,” said state senator Pat
Steadman, D-Denver.
“Voters wanted the school capital construction program
to benefit, and despite some bumps in the road at the begin-
ning, it looks like what was intended is coming to fruition.”
There are three types of state taxes on recreational
marijuana: the standard 2.9 percent sales tax, a 10 percent
special marijuana sales tax and a 15 percent excise tax on
wholesale marijuana transfers.
The new pot tax data also showed that recreational mar-
ijuana sales in Colorado plateaued in spring 2015. Those re-
tail sales hardly fluctuated between March and May, stay-
ing between $42.4 and $42.7 million, totaling $42.5 million
in May.
May’s medical marijuana sales in Colorado were at
their highest since last October, totaling $32.4 million.
No matter what the excise tax produces this year, Colo-
rado schools will get the promised infusion of $40 million.
That’s because state lawmakers changed the funding ear-
lier this year when they agreed to send voters a revised
pot-tax plan to comply with constitutional spending restric-
tions.
Colorado voters in November will determine the fate of
Proposition BB, which will either refund tens of millions of
dollars in marijuana taxes from the recently ended fiscal
year to businesses and citizens or allow the state to keep
the money. The state has earmarked the money for school
construction, law enforcement, substance abuse, preven-
tion and youth services. If voters reject Prop BB, nearly
$60 million will be refunded to marijuana businesses and
pot-shopping customers via a sales tax rate reduction on
recreational cannabis.
EDUCATION
Associated Press
ECONOMIC ISSUES
State Fair considers
moving from Pueblo
due to high costs
Associated Press
PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) — The Colorado State Fair could be
ending its 146-year run in Pueblo as a legislative committee
looks to fix the event’s cash flow problems.
The Denver Post reports that the fair has been losing
money and depending on millions of dollars in taxpayer
subsidies for the last 13 years. Auditors told legislators
Tuesday that there is no solution if the fair remains at its
current location.
Members of the Legislative Audit Committee suggested
the fair move from Pueblo to another Colorado community
that might bid for it.
The city of Pueblo has cut financial support of the event
by two-thirds the last three years. It generates about $29 mil-
lion in economic impact to the area.
The fairground lost $3.3 million last year and receives
about $2 million in state and local contributions.