SODA receives new school designation from state

LOS LUNAS — School of Dreams Academy Superintendent Mike Ogas was excited to announce at the SODA Governing Council meeting in November that the district has improved its state-assessed performance ranking.

“At the beginning of the year, we had a school designation from the state called MRI (most rigorous intervention) for graduation. Because of that, we compiled a grant narrative and submitted it to the state, and got a lot of things in place for that,” said Ogas. “On Nov. 4, a team from the state came down to evaluate our progress … our designation has now changed from MRI to traditional, which means we went up about three rungs on the state’s designation.”

School designations are released annually by the New Mexico Public Education Department through Vistas, the state’s most recent performance evaluation tool. The highest-scoring schools are assigned a designation of spotlight. The next highest ranking is traditional, which means the school is in good standing.

According to PED’s website, “schools are rated on a point system based on math, reading and science achievement/assessment results; growth in math and reading across time; student attendance and progress toward English language proficiency for students that are English learners. High schools are also scored on post-secondary readiness, graduation rates and graduation rate growth.”

There were also some changes to this year’s scoring system that aim to better consider and factor in individual student growth. This change follows an internal review of PED’s accountability processes and business rules from the U.S Department of Education last year in which accountability failures were found.

To help boost graduation rates and academic proficiency, the charter school implemented some new initiatives this school year including a tiered intervention process for attendance, behavior and course work for grades 6-12 accompanied by a multi-layered system of support process.

Ogas said this improved monitoring system will allow for a more full picture look at how students are progressing and will allow for quicker intervention if there is additional support needed for the student.

“I’m very proud of how that’s working out,” he said. “The entire goal is to get kids to graduate and to raise our graduation rate and to let parents know where their child stands at any given time.”

In November, Ogas said PED compiled a report highlighting promising practices and also areas for improvement. In the report, the superintendent said SODA received positive comments regarding their career technical education opportunities which allow students to engage in “meaningful, real-world learning experiences.”

Ogas said the report also gave positive remarks on added staff members who “focus on the root causes of attendance, course completion and graduation which is a strategic step toward achieving desired outcomes and goals.”

“All these different layers of people are working very hard to support kids on their different tracks for graduation. Not everybody goes through one single track,” said Ogas.

As far as opportunities for growth, Ogas said the report had three main recommendations for improvement including creating a curriculum that’s more standards-based, creating a more aligned individual learning plan process and structured observations for staff to have more meaningful feedback.

“We’re also working on developing and distributing clear, accessible communications, newsletters and website updates. We’ve already started to look at our social media presence, and how we can enhance getting our message out in a positive way,” he said.