Albuquerque Public Schools was founded in 1891, shortly after the New Mexico Territorial Legislature passed a new public education law authorizing municipalities to establish school boards and sell municipal bonds for school construction. The district acquired its first school by taking over the former Albuquerque Academy at Central and Edith, and classes began that fall. Primary schools were established in each of the city's four political wards in the early 1890s, and a new Central School for the upper grades opened in 1900. In 1911, the district appointed superintendent John Milne, who oversaw the school system until 1956 and was credited with much of its success. With the city continuing to grow rapidly, a new high school building was constructed in 1914. Critics complained that the school was too large and would never reach its capacity of 500 students, but this proved not to be the case as a second building was required just 13 years later and the campus had grown to five buildings by 1940. In 1923 the district added two junior high schools, Washington and Lincoln, and two elementary schools at the expanding fringes of the city, John Marshall in the south and University Heights in the east. The outdated old ward schools were phased out between 1927 and 1937, to be replaced by Longfellow, Eugene Field, Coronado, and Lew Wallace elementary schools, respectively. The district continued to expand with the city's growth to the east, adding Monte Vista Elementary in 1931, Jefferson Junior High in 1938, and Bandelier Elementary in 1939. Albuquerque's population exploded in the postwar era, and APS had to add new schools continuously to keep up, including the city's second high school, Highland, in 1949. APS also took over the Bernalillo Countypublic school system that same year, bringing in schools in the older rural communities along the Rio Grande valley and in the mountains. In 1956 the district boasted 39,000 students and 67 schools, the two most distant of which were apart. Declining enrollments saw several inner-city schools closed in the 1970s, and Albuquerque High moved to a new location farther from Downtown. Nevertheless, the district as a whole continued to grow, and more recent demographic shifts have seen Coronado and Lew Wallace elementary schools reopen. In 1994, the Rio Rancho schools were spun off as a separate school district. In 2010, APS recorded nearly 100,000 students.
Schools
As of 2017, APS operates 88 elementary schools, 27 middle schools and 13 high schools. The following list is adapted from the APS website.
