Santa Fe schools see slip in grades

District was above state average on the percentage of schools that improved

SANTA FE — While there were some notable improvements, individual school grades handed out by the state Public Education Department on Wednesday generally slipped for schools within the Santa Fe Public Schools district.

Three fewer SFPS schools received and A or B for the 2015-2016 school year than the year before, and four more schools had either a D or an F.

“We’re going to have to double up our efforts,” said Veronica Garcia, SFPS’s interim superintendent, who took over for Joel Boyd when he resigned last month after four years. “And it has to be very strategic and very targeted.”

By another measure, Santa Fe was a tick above the state average on the percentage of schools that improved their grades from last year, with 34 percent of SFPS schools getting a better grade compared to 33 percent statewide. However, 38 percent of Santa Fe schools dropped at least one grade, while 31 percent did statewide. Twenty-eight percent of Santa Fe schools received the same grade, while 36 percent of the 849 schools across the state remained steady.

During a telephone news conference Wednesday, Education Secretary Hanna Skandera noted that the weighting of some elements that go into the grading formula, such as the number of students on grade level, has changed.

“So you could say there was a higher expectation with this year’s schools’ grades,” she said.

Good news for the district was that five schools received an A, one more than last year. Acequia Madre, Carlos Gilbert, Wood Gormley and Piñon elementary schools each earned an A, along with the Academy for Technology and the Classics, a district charter school.

Acequia Madre, on the city’s

east side, and Piñon, on the south side, improved from Bs last year.

“The overall message to me, the community, and school staff is that regardless of ZIP code, our students are capable of reaching success,” Garcia said, pointing to those two schools as examples.

Two district schools received aB, four fewer than last year. Atalaya Elementary dropped from a A, while Gonzales Elementary improved from aC.

Not one of the six schools that received aC last year remained at that level. While Gonzales improved, Amy Biehl and Nina Otero community schools, Tesuque Elementary, Capshaw Middle School, and Capital High each dropped one letter grade to aD.

Santa Fe’s high schools failed to gain traction. Capital High dropped from aC to aD, while Santa Fe High again received an F.

DeVargas and Ortiz middle schools also failed to show improvement from the F grades they received last year. The other two F grades were given to the Academy at Larragoite, which dropped from aD, andCés ar Chávez Elementary, which earned a Bay ear ago.

“We need to take a deep dive into the data and look at the factors that went into that,” Garcia said of César Chávez.

Meanwhile, Chaparral and Salazar elementary schools improved from an F to a Dan dC, respectively.

Engage Santa Fe, a high school made up of students who had previously dropped out, improved from an F to aC.

Garcia said the school district will have to take an analytical approach to determine what could be done to improve grades at each school, and that it will be done on a case-by-case basis.

“I don’t think I can ask teachers to work harder because they have been working hard,” she said.

As for other area charter schools, Tierra Encantada dropped from aD to an F, Monte del Sol duplicated the D it got last year, Turquoise Trail improved from aC to aB, and New Mexico School for the Arts once again received an A.