To highlight the impact of Academy alumni in the field of education, Alumni Council member Ted Alcorn ’01 is sharing the stories of graduates who have devoted their careers to teaching, learning, and inspiring others.
Meaghan Hindman was eager for a fresh start.
The sixth grader arrived at Albuquerque Academy following two tumultuous years in which a string of her elementary school teachers struggled to control their classrooms, were transferred, or fired. The oldest daughter of attorneys, Meaghan wanted to learn, but she hadn’t been offered an environment in which to do it. She’d made it to middle school, but there were gaps in her academic foundation.
“I still remember sitting with my math teacher, Ginger Whisnant, during lunch so she could go over my test corrections because I didn’t understand it, and I just remember crying,” she recalled.
Instead of deterring her, those early struggles became a turning point, and the new school caught her fall. On a large campus that could have proven overwhelming, her small “family” grouping put her at ease. She eventually found a bigger community on the swim team, where she became part of a record-setting, 400-yard freestyle relay team. And her teachers gave her individual attention and helped her catch up, within a curriculum and overall structure deftly organized to prepare all students for the year to come.
But the rocky start still made an indelible impression. Meaghan had already decided that when she grew up, she wanted to be a teacher, and now she felt viscerally the importance of ensuring no student is left behind. “I want kids to go to a place every day where they feel seen,” she said. “Where they feel important and they’re having fun, but also where they’re not going to be missed.”
Nearly 20 years later, in 2016, she was back in Albuquerque, putting that belief into action as she co-founded the charter elementary school Altura Prep.
Now she could draw on a decade of hard-won experience as an educator. After college, she’d done a stint with Teach for America, learning her own hard lessons in a terribly poor neighborhood in northern California, where her class had 42 students but only 38 chairs. She’d gotten a graduate degree in education policy and leadership, then faced more challenges trying to turn around some of the lowest-performing schools in Tennessee. Her co-founder, Academy parent and board member Lissa Hines, had spent more than a decade as a principal in California, as well.
Now settling in New Mexico, where even in the best schools students were lagging their peers elsewhere in the country, the pair dreamed of building an elementary school that would launch kids fully prepared to excel in middle school.
Still, as the opening of Altura approached, doubt crept in. The co-founders had rented space in a strip mall they could adapt into classrooms for 50 incoming students, but by the first day, construction was only half complete. (They tread water the first week by taking everyone on field trips.) Meaghan couldn’t help but think about the profound impact of her own chaotic elementary school years. “We’ve promised these families that we know what we’re doing.”
The subsequent years have proven that, in fact, they did know what they were doing. Not that there haven’t been unexpected challenges (like a global pandemic), but Altura’s offerings proved in-demand, with enrollment growing to 90 in its second year and 180 in its third. Today, they have 270 enrolled students and 400 on a wait-list. And the latest statewide test results show they are the second-highest scoring school in math and the highest performing in English and science.
Just like she did as a member of the Academy relay team, Meaghan is quick to credit others. “Having somebody to work with and for is important,” she said. “Nothing meaningful gets accomplished or shared or spread without a lot of people involved.”
And like swim practices on days she didn’t fell like getting in the pool, there are days she doesn’t feel like going to school. “But you know, there are 30 other people who are going to get in the pool with you. And you know that they’re going to be working as hard, if not harder, than you are. And what would it say to them if you didn’t show up?”
She’d always promised herself that if she started a school, it would have to be good enough to send her own kids there. Next year she’ll get that chance, when her four-year-old daughter begins kindergarten.
“It’s pretty crazy to be like, ‘Oh, here we are now. Here she comes.’”