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Our History
In 1958, Barbara Young Simms began to investigate the possibility of starting a girls day school in Albuquerque. In 1965, she secured land, established a board of trustees and formed the Sandia School, a nonsectarian school. In late January 1966, the Rev. Paul G. Saunders, an Episcopal priest, was selected headmaster and, later that year, the school opened. The year began with 75 students in grades 5 through 10 (grade 11 was added the next year; grade 12 the year after), and finished with 82 students.
In 1969, Orell Phillips served as interim headmaster while the school's board searched for a new head. In 1970, Mose Hale became third headmaster. Three years later, Sandia School became coeducational. In 1974, Elton Knutson was selected as fourth headmaster.
The school began to refer to itself as Sandia Preparatory School during the 1975-76 academic year. Fifth-grade classes were discontinued in the 1985-86 school year. For the next academic year, Dick Heath joined Sandia Prep as its fifth (and current) headmaster.
Since its founding in 1966, Sandia Prep has grown from a girls' school serving 82 students in three buildings to a coeducational institution serving 625 students in multiple buildings and facilities that fill a 30-acre campus. The first graduating class in 1969 consisted of six girls; the class of 2007 numbered 106.
Sandia Prep is "descended" from the original Sandía School, a private day and boarding school for girls founded by Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms (Barbara Young Simms' aunt by marriage) in 1932. Its first year, Sandía School held classes for five students and one teacher in a private house where Manzano Day School is now located. The school was formed in part to help prepare girls for further study or college in the Eastern United States.
In 1937, the school moved to a new permanent campus (now part of Kirtland Air Force Base). Mrs. Simms commissioned architect John Gaw Meem to design the school complex in the territorial style. By 1938, the school had 75 students, nine of whom were boarders, and 18 faculty. In 1942, due to World War II, Sandía School closed. A number of alumnae from the first Sandía School actively participated in the organization of the current Sandia Prep School.
School History Published
Constant Possum: A History of Sandia Preparatory School, written by SPS archivist and former teacher Lou Liberty, is available through Sandia Prep.
Regular editions are $49 each (shipping & handling included).
Limited, slipcased editions, signed by the author, designer and Headmaster and including a series of four original student lithographs suitable for framing, are $100 each.
For more information, call the Advancement Office at SPS at (505) 338-3029 or email us