How did your child’s school do?
Taos County school grades released
The New Mexico Public Education Department released the 2017-18 school grades for New Mexico schools.
Some Taos County schools improved while some schools saw their grades fall. Most matched their grades from last year.
Of the 22 schools in the county, five schools raised their previous year’s grade while only three schools dropped in the 2017-18 school year. PED officials said grades across the state are rising and that there were fewer F grades than in previous years. In addition, the rigor of determining the grades going forward will continue to increase as the bar is raised for future generations of students.
“We continue to increase expectations,” said PED Secretary Christopher Ruszkowski. “It is harder for a school to earn an A or a B than it was two years ago.”
Schools are graded annually based on a number of criteria established by the education department for student success. This is the seventh year schools will have been graded on their performance and student
growth. Schools are graded on opportunity to learn, student academic improvement and school improvement.
In Taos County, some schools have overcome their past low grades and made large strides, and a few schools are still on the track to get their A and B grades. In Peñasco, both the middle and high school upped their grades with Peñasco Middle School earning their first A grade from the state.
Questa
Questa schools have some work ahead of them, according to Ruszkowski, as the district’s junior high school received its fifth consecutive F grade.
“I do think that Questa is one of a handful of districts across the state that requires immediate urgent attention from the school board and, if necessary, from the Public Education Department as well,” said Ruszkowski. “There are some real concerns with Questa.”
Three of Questa’s five schools received F grades from the recent reports. Administrators are working to get the grades back up beyond D or F grades.
Questa Superintendent LeAnne Salazar said the district has completely redirected to focus on teacher instruction and has hired new teachers to give students the help they need in the classroom.
“We’ve restructured the district,” Salazar said. “We’re trying to really have a more robust academic program.”
Questa High School and Río Costilla Southwest Learning Academy are the district’s highest performing school, retaining their B grades from the previous years.
Salazar said the district remains committed to students and is striving to increase their scores for all schools.
Charters
Charter schools in Taos have cause to celebrate after the release of the grades as several of them raised their grades and have overcome serious odds.
Taos Academy, a school with six consecutive A grades from the PED, received praise from Ruszkowski after their A grade for 2018. The school continues to offer their hybrid online and in-person instruction to students grades 5-12 and continues to top the charts in Taos and New Mexico as well.
“What a great reflection on the hard work of our students and teachers,” said director Traci Filiss. “(Taos Academy) looks forward to growing even more successful learners as we expand our high school programming and early college options; at the same time, we are building in more enrichment opportunities for our younger students.”
Other charters in the district such as Taos Integrated School for the Arts and Taos International School raised their grades for 2018 as well. TISA moved up from their 2016 D grade to receive their first A grade in 2018, a feat only 13 other schools across the state achieved this year.
Taos International School also made strides in achievement after the school brought up their 2017 F grade to this year’s C. The school is currently caught in a battle with the state over the charter. In 2017, the state education committee voted not to renew the school’s charter. The school has appealed the decision.
Despite the issues, the school’s director Nadine Vigil previously said she was confident in the student’s abilities and was looking forward to the grades being released.
“We are all ecstatic with our school grade, but our main focus this year is to become an A school with the help of our parents and community,” Vigil said. “We will continue enhancing the programs and strategies that we feel as a staff contributed to our growth. The staff along with the students worked very hard and it paid off.”
Taos Municipal
A majority of Taos Municipal Schools retained their same grade from the previous year, only going up or down by a small number of points within the letter grade. In particular, Taos High School and Taos Middle School remained at their previous grades. However, Taos Middle School does plan to appeal with the PED to see if they can reach a C grade.
Other schools in Taos still have catching up to do, including Enos Garcia Elementary and Ranchos Elementary, who both dropped to an F grade this year. Superintendent Lillian Torrez said the schools have shown growth and are working through several issues to bring up their grades for future years.
“You can’t do the same thing for the grade. You have to go higher on proficiency,” Torrez said. “Every student is going to keep moving and every student is going to do better. It takes time.”
Torrez attributed the low grades to several factors, including poverty and special education students. In addition, Torrez said the public schools don’t have the funding to compete head-to-head with some of the charters in the area. Torrez said if the funding was there, Taos Municipal Schools would first work towards reducing class sizes to better specialize student’s learning abilities.
“We have to do a lot of small group instruction, and we’re going to have to be more innovative on how we deliver the curriculum,” Torrez said.
According to Ruszkowski, schools have until Aug. 31 to appeal the grade they received should they disagree with the department’s report. According to Ruszkowski, few grades have changed as a result of appeals in the past.
Parents whose students go to schools who have received two F grades in the past four years are allowed to seek alternative schools for their children, according to the PED.