Roswell preparatory school looks to expand to middle schoolers

ROSWELL, N.M. — “The dominoes are starting to fall.”

New Mexico Military Institute President and Superintendent, Major General Jerry Grizzle is talking about plans for the Intermediate Preparatory Academy.

A new middle school will prepare sixth through eighth graders for NMMI’s challenging academic curriculum, and he said plans have been in the works for over a year.

“Anyone in the school faculty administration have the ability to submit an initiative that they would like to propose to be considered, and this initiative was to consider creating our own middle school to, to better prepare students to come to NMMI,” said Grizzle.

The new school will host almost 200 students, and it will be a day school, not a boarding school like NMMI’s high school and junior college.

The next steps will be to renovate the old Covenant doctor’s office space that’s a few blocks from the main campus, which will be the site of the new school building Grizzle said.

“I give a lot of credit, and thanks to our foundation, they’re going to actually be the one that stepped forward and purchase that building so we can move quickly into the renovations, and then we’ll sign a lease with them, that needs to be approved by the state,” he said.

The foundation also owns the land around the building, so they have room to grow, Grizzle said.

Now that those dominos are falling into place, this project is almost in the home stretch he said of the process.

“So, we’re just really excited. But at the same time, you know, now’s the time to not only be excited, but really stay focused and follow this plan,” said Grizzle.

NMMI hopes the prep school will entice local students to continue their higher education there. It hopes to open its doors to the first class in August 2023.