Albuquerque Public Schools
APS Marine Corps JROTC Programs Among Best in Nation
Three Albuquerque Public Schools Marine Corps JROTC programs – Eldorado, La Cueva, and Rio Grande high schools – have been recognized as Naval Honor schools and are ranked in the top 10 percent of all such units in the U.S., Guam and Japan.
The award goes to programs that have exhibited excellent academic performance, marksmanship, volunteer service hours, community engagement and participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math, among other efforts.
Each program had 1,000 to 3,000 community service hours, placed first, second or third in the state championships, finished in the top 10 in the National Marksmanship Championships and in the top 10 nationally for CyberPatriot, a computer coding competition.
“Nationwide, the Marine Corps selected 140 schools to be Naval Honor schools and three came from APS,” said retired Master Sgt. Roberto E. Valdez, who heads middle and high school JROTC programs for the district. “There are only six Marine JROTC schools in New Mexico. This is really super rare. In comparison, there are 112 Marine JROTC programs in New York State alone. To actually have three schools from the same district is being closer to the top 1% of all programs.”
The instructors at each program are:
- Eldorado – Maj. James Koerber
- La Cueva – Gunnery Sgt. Oliver Rodriguez; Gunnery Sgt. Michael Ferran Melendez
- Rio Grande – Maj. Narciso Corral; Master Sgt. Phillip Carter
Each school will be awarded a streamer to signify the honor and can nominate one cadet to the U.S. Air Force Academy, one to the U.S. Military Academy, four to the U.S. Naval Academy and one to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.