Here’s how many schools across New Mexico moved into good standing with PED

Nineteen New Mexico schools are no longer designated by the state’s Public Education Department for poor academic performance after showing strides in student achievement and in improving learning environments.

Nearly half of those are in the largest school district in the state, Albuquerque Public Schools, where five elementary schools and four middle schools were taken off of two designation lists due to improvements in academic performance.

The district still has 28 campuses with designated status, including 13 charter schools for which APS does not oversee the day-to-day operations.

PED has four designations for struggling schools:

• Targeted Support and Improvement Schools for campuses “with consistently underperforming student groups,”
• Additional Targeted Support and Improvement Schools, which are defined as those “in need of support with one or more of the lowest performing groups of students,”
• Comprehensive Support and Improvement Schools, which are those scoring “in the bottom 5% of Title I schools overall or that have a graduation rate below 67%” and
• More Rigorous Interventions Schools, those that have not improved enough after three years of receiving support.

If a campus remains on these lists long enough, PED can close and reopen the school, but “that sort of Draconian measure has not ever been exercised,” according to Amanda DeBell, PED’s Deputy Secretary of Teaching, Learning and Innovation.

She added that APS’ success in getting nine schools off the list comes down to similar goals between the state agency and the district.

“We know that (what) the Albuquerque Public Schools has done is they have focused really tightly to improving outcomes with their strategic plan,” DeBell said. “And their strategic plan is not that far out of alignment with the PED strategic plan.”

That was echoed by APS’ Chief Academic Officer Sheri Jett, who said one of the district’s established goals of building students’ self-efficacy was showing up in improved academics at the nine schools for which the designation was removed.

“When we look at those nine schools, and we see their academic achievement increasing, we are also seeing their perceptions and skills, habits and mindsets increasing,” she said. “That is a major part of the story we’d like to tell: Those skills lead to academic success, they lead to higher attendance, and, like I mentioned, student persistence.”

The district’s strategic plan is centered around the goals and guardrails set by the board in 2023. The teachers’ union president, Ellen Bernstein, questioned the value of those goals and guardrails after the union retook control of the school board in the recent election.

But Jett believes the goal of building students’ skills, habits, and mindsets will remain despite any sea change on the APS board.

“I don’t have any concerns about that, because I think the board has a role, and I respect that deeply, but so does the administration,” Jett said. “The things we’ve put in place have momentum beyond the goals at this point ... I know for a fact that the board is not going to say, ‘Stop doing good work.’”

In addition to the nine schools taken off the designation lists, the district also had two elementary schools moved from the Comprehensive Support and Improvement schools designation to the Targeted Support and Improvement designation.

Barcelona Elementary School remains designated for “historically low performance in reading and math for Students with Disabilities,” and at Emerson Elementary, the school saw “historically low performance in math for Hispanic students,” according to APS spokesperson Martin Salazar.

“We look at those designations really thoughtfully, like it’s telling us something about what is happening in that school, the supports that they need and the changes we need to make,” Jett said. “The goal is, obviously, to move everybody out of designation, right? And so we still have schools that are in designation, and we’re going to continue that process with them.”

While the designation status can be concerning for schools, Elisabeth Peterson, director of the Priority Schools Department at the PED, said it also means the state offers more assistance to improve.

“You’re going to get more attention, you’re going to get more resources in the form of a grant, and you’re going to get more support,” she said. “We really collaboratively want to work with schools who understand their community, who understand their data, who understand or need to have a deeper dive into ‘What does this mean, what does the designation mean?’”