About Baca Elementary School

  • Location
    2800 E 17th Street | Pueblo, CO 81001

    Telephone: 719-549-7530
    Fax: 719-253-5240

    Attendance Line
    (to report a student absence or tardy): 
    719-549-7530

    Email: baca@pueblod60.org

  • Outside front of Baca School

     

    Eva R. Baca Elementary School is a hidden gem at the center of Pueblo's Eastwood Heights/Dogpatch neighborhood, a school that literally rose from the ashes to become one of the highest performing elementary schools in Pueblo School District 60.

    Named for former principal and a community advocate from the old Eastwood Elementary School, Eva R. Baca, Baca Elementary was re-built following a fire to Eastwood Elementary in the 1980s, becoming the beacon for the Eastwood Heights neighborhood that it is today. Baca Elementary is all about its community, helping keep the neighborhood strong by strengthening the school/home partnership with families through high parent involvement and outreach.

    Baca Elementary is an AVID School, an approach to learning that empowers students by explicitly teaching them the hidden curriculum of school by developing time management, organization, interactive note taking, inquiry, collaboration, writing, and reading skills.

     

  • About the School Name

    What began as Eastwood Elementary in 1959 was renamed Eva Baca Elementary in 1993 upon the retirement of a devoted educational advocate who served the District as a teacher, principal and Director of Chapter 1.

    The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Mrs. Eva Baca was the first in her family to attain a college degree and served as a role model and mentor as to the power of education in attaining success.

    At the age of 32, and as a recently widowed mother of two, Mrs. Baca was in the first graduating class of Pueblo Junior College, which transitioned to Southern Colorado State College in 1965 and is now Colorado State University Pueblo.

    She also received a Master of Arts degree from Adams State University and an Administrative Certification from the University of Wyoming.

    At Eastwood Elementary, Mrs. Baca was Principal for 12 years, a tenure that helped solidify her status as a groundbreaking Pueblo “icon" and endeared her to thousands of Roadrunners.

    She also was beloved in the Eastwood Heights community.

    On her first day on the job, Mrs. Baca visited every home in the neighborhood to introduce herself.

    Even in her retirement, Mrs. Baca often visited the school to check up on the progress of the scholars.

    Mrs. Baca passed away in 2007, which led to flags being flown at half mast at the school named in her honor.

    "She was just a wonderful human being," said Dr. Henry Roman, Superintendent of the District during Mrs. Baca's tenure. "She was warm, she was caring, she was sensitive first and second, she was an excellent administrator."

    Mrs. Baca's daughter, Joyce Baca Anderson, retired from the District after three decades as an educator and administrator.

    At Colorado State University Pueblo, The Eva Baca Memorial Scholarship was established to benefit single mothers, of Latina descent, enrolled as a full-time undergraduate education majors.