Belen Schools achieve spotlight

BELEN — Three out of the 10 schools in the Belen Consolidated Schools district have achieved spotlight status, according to the state’s school performance reporting system, NM Vistas.

For the 2023-24 school year, Belen Family School, Dennis Chavez and Gil Sanchez elementary schools all received the spotlight designation.

Belen Family School was a spotlight school in the 2022-23 school year, while Gil Sanchez moved up from an ATSI designation due to low proficiency in the special education sub group.

A spotlight school is among the top 25 percent of schools in the state.

Belen Middle School also left the ATSI category and moved up to traditional in the most recent Vistas reporting.

The remainder of BCS elementary schools — Central, La Merced, La Promesa and Rio Grande — are traditional schools, as is Belen High School.

Infinity High School remains at a designation of MRI — more rigorous interventions — due to its graduation rate, which is below the required 67 percent.

The Vistas data was presented to the Belen Board of Education at its Dec. 10 meeting. Superintendent Lawrence Sanchez said schools with a traditional designation are in the top 26 to 74 percent of schools, a wide range, and lower designations are due to graduation rates or other sub groups such as English Learners or special education.

“We still have Infinity at MRI but we’ll see what happens when they release the graduation data. Designations are done on a points system which has changed from this year to last. Proficiency has changed from 20 to 25 (points). Besides looking at proficiency in math, reading and science, they are looking at growth in math and reading,” Sanchez said.

“We are also graded on progress for English Learner proficiency. As well look at these report cards, we definitely need to look at post secondary readiness, which is an area we shine in.”

NM Vistas, developed by the New Mexico Public Education Department, is a public data reporting website that showcases school performance based on state accountability and other required criteria from the Every Student Succeeds Act, as mandated by the U.S. Department of Education.

Now that the Vistas data has been released, Sanchez said the district “needs to take care of things we can control,” noting that metrics like graduation rates are based on students who may no longer be enrolled in the district.

“In some cases, if they spent a day here they count. Each year, students are counted on the 40th, 80th, 120th and last day of class. If a student is on campus for any one of those days, we earn a quarter. A student can count for 16 quarters,” the superintendent explained. “So if you spent your first two years here, whatever your (graduation) outcome is, we get half.”

During the presentation, Sanchez touched on highlights from many of the schools, such as Belen High School, which has been “staying steady” in terms of college and career readiness, earning 4.98 out of 5 possible points.

Belen Middle School has been excelling in reading proficiency — earning 12.29 out of 20 points — the superintendent said. Math proficiency is increasing at BMS, as well as science.

Belen Family School has been a high performing school for many years, and student proficiency in math and reading increased there.

Science proficiency increased at Central Elementary, Sanchez, but there has been high staff turnover at the site.

“We are working with them on the instructional model to fill gaps,” he said. “One thing these report cards are showing is a weakness all over in our English Learner sub group. We need to look at what we can do to boost this population. Science is going up but it’s not getting the same focus as EL and math.”

At GSE, the school earned 10.8 points out of 15 in math but only 3.33 out of 10 in EL. Sanchez said there is progress in proficiency, but “we need to get better as a whole.”

La Merced is on its fifth principal in five years, he said, which has made it hard to build consistency at the school.

Scores at Rio Grande are for third grade students only, since pre-k through second grade aren’t included in Vistas data. RGE is at 13.58 points out of 20 in reading, putting it “on the cusp of spotlight scores,” Sanchez told the board.

The superintendent said he had reviewed the Vistas report cards with all the school principals to identify areas of growth and improvement, asking them to review the data with staff so “they start to understand, as educators, what actions we need to take. We have our professional learning communities identify students who need intervention, then track to see whether those interventions are working.

“We need to make good use of the PLC’s time. Principals hold staff accountable. You hold me accountable and it’s up to me to hold them accountable. This is never a ‘gotcha.’ It’s ‘ what can we do to get better?’”