OPINION: Success in the new school year hinges on every APS student showing up

The new school year begins on Aug. 7, and we’re thrilled to welcome our students back and embark on a new journey.

We have much to be excited about at Albuquerque Public Schools, starting with the long-anticipated expansion of our ever-popular Coronado Dual Language Magnet. We relocated it to an expansive campus in the North Valley that previously housed Taft Middle School. The move allows Coronado to eventually grow into a K-8 school, starting with its first sixth-grade class this year.

We’re also launching a new APS International High School to better serve our refugee and immigrant students. This school, located Downtown in what had been the Coronado campus, will help students develop English skills, learn a new education system and adjust to a new culture with the help of a welcome center located on school grounds.

Meanwhile, students who attended Taft last year will be welcomed at nearby Taylor Middle School. By combining Taft and Taylor, which were both struggling with low enrollment, we are creating a more robust middle school that can provide more opportunities.

A lot is going on this school year and we’ve already made headway, with a successful kickoff for principals and administrators and a first-ever gathering of every APS teacher at the Convention Center that will take place Monday.

The momentum doesn’t stop there.

We’re partnering with Arizona State University on a pilot program at six of our middle schools to reimagine the middle school experience. We have historically lost a high percentage of students during the transition from fifth to sixth grade, and that has created anemic middle schools that struggle to provide the robust offerings our middle schoolers need to thrive.

We hope to change that with The Next Education Workforce Initiative, which aims to improve student outcomes and teacher satisfaction by creating a more student-centered learning environment and fostering greater teacher collaboration. Specifically, teachers will learn to collaborate in planning teams as schools adjust schedules and student groupings based on individual needs and interests.

At the high school level, we’re launching the Academies of Albuquerque at three of our campuses and eventually plan to move to that concept at all of our comprehensive high schools. We’re working with the United Way of North Central New Mexico and our community to make it happen.

In this model, students will get to choose from several career pathways, with community business partners providing expertise, guidance and networking opportunities. These pathways will encompass a wide range of opportunities aligned with our state’s workforce needs, from culinary to medical and beyond, utilizing an industry lens to engage students more deeply in core classes such as math, English, social studies and science.

All of these efforts are aimed at helping us achieve the four goals our Board of Education set in 2023 in consultation with the community: improving third-grade literacy, eighth-grade math proficiency and college and career readiness, and helping our students develop the skills, habits and mindsets that will help them succeed in life. I’m proud to say we’re on target with each goal.

The exciting initiatives we’re launching this year are geared toward building on that momentum by engaging students and getting them excited about their futures. These initiatives can make a difference — but only if our students are coming to school every day ready to learn.

We’re prepared to move mountains if that’s what it takes to help our students succeed. But that won’t matter if a significant portion of our kids continue to skip school regularly.

When people ask me what our greatest challenges are, I always point to chronic absenteeism, particularly at our youngest grades. I hope that battling this insidious issue can become an Albuquerque crusade, not just an APS challenge.

We’ve made some progress on this problem in recent years. In the 2021-2022 school year, 34% of our students were chronically absent; they missed 10% or more of their school days. But we still have way too many students missing school regularly. Last school year, 28% of our kids were chronically absent.

If you’re a parent, please ensure your student is at school every day because students can fall behind when they miss regularly.

It comes down to this: When our kids go to school, they learn. When they learn, our community thrives.

Let’s work together to ensure we’re doing everything possible in the 2025-2026 school year to give our kids the tools they need to succeed.