• Category 2

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: 7 - 8
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 9,339
    Student Enrollment: 650
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 0.5%
    White/Caucasian: 2%
    Hispanic: 95%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0.5%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:30
    % Reduced Lunch: 100%
    % ELL Learners: 51%
    Founded: 1978
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Rosa E. Lovelace
  • CONTACT:
    4800 McNutt Road
    Santa Teresa, NM 88008
    915-867-1414
    relovelace@gisd.k12.nm.us
Santa Teresa Middle School
Santa Teresa, NM
Our mantra is our commitment to provide quality education through best practices.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
Math and literacy nights in English and Spanish for parents are held twice a year. We also hold Parent Roundtable meetings once a month. The topic of our discussions are usually about the school's efforts to teach the whole child.

Last year, we conducted staff development for parents on a Saturday. We invited them to register for the sessions that were being hosted by our content area teachers. Parents were presented with a certificate by the superintendent of our school district for their participation. This was a huge success and so we will be replicating this again this Spring semester.

The S.T.O.P meeting that was mentioned earlier, is also a huge success with our parents. They are informed about all sorts of issues that schools confront such as bullying, mental health, and attendance issues, but primarily, how to prevent anything from happening at our own campus.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
The Santa Teresa Middle School Outreach program, known as S.T.O.P., was started nine years ago. It was initially started to involve the community in helping us keep students in school. Since its inception, it has grown to include the offices of the Mayor and Police. We involve the Dona Anna District Attorney's office, mental health, social and truancy workers, Juvenile Probation office, Housing Authority, and other groups. The success of the program allows parents to learn about providers in our community. In my opinion, this has been the best idea we have had. All agencies and organizations come together to help parents in time of need to keep children in school. Teachers always say, "You can't teach empty seats!" We do our best to help both parents and teachers.

Parents are an integral part of a strong partnership between the school and the community. Our program, S.T O.P. is a valuable asset in bringing parental awareness of valuable resources.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
The most important thing to remember is that we should always build on the teaching strengths teachers possess. All teachers are creative, analytical and arduous in delivering effective instruction. I have an open-door policy to encourage extraneous thinking by teachers.

As I have been fortunate to turn several schools around, my mission has been to bring the community together for the students' benefit. I have been relentless in my efforts to walk the talk.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
One of our goals will be to provide effective Tier I instruction. We will continue to improve on the differentiation of instruction. A major focus will be engaging EL students in the four areas of authentic literacy, which are Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. This will ensure that EL students will advance to the highest level of proficiency in all academic areas. Our ultimate goal for all students is to get them to leave middle school on a college bound trajectory.

Our second goal is analyzing data to drive instruction. The data guides the pathway to teach the standards, create the lessons, and frontload activities that will engage students in reaching the highest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Our driving force that we practice in our school is that, "Student ethnicity and social class are not barriers to learning: rather, schools that do not properly respond to the needs of these students are the barriers." is aptly stated in the book, Will to Lead, the Skill to Teach. Teachers plan, prepare and execute daily lesson plans to reach every single student regardless of social, emotional, cultural, or learning levels.

We take the strengths the child comes into our school with and build upon them. Some students come in with great mathematical skills. We meet them and challenge them to achieve more. We offer Algebra I, a high school credit course, to seventh grade students. They then take Geometry in the eighth grade. By the same token, we offer English I, another high school credit course, to eighth grade students. These students excel above and beyond.

Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
We attribute the success in our school to the great teamwork and collaboration and willingness to teach all students. We believe that having separate male and female math classes has been one of the best initiatives. Studies indicate that females tend to do better in same gender classes. The achievement gap has been closed because of this practice. Both our parents and students have supported the initiative.

There is a ninety minute A/B block schedule that allows content teachers to have a common planning period. The teachers use this time to focus on closing the gaps between subgroups and ability levels.

Having an informed staff that reads about best practices, trends, teaching methodologies and applying these practices in the classroom has been one of the best initiatives we have faithfully executed for the last twelve years. Teachers embrace the idea of having lab classroom to learn from others and then in their own rooms with their students.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
ESEA funds are used to hire an Instructional Coach and Reading and Math Intervention specialists. The Instructional Coach works with teachers in data mining, the writing of common formative assessments, lesson planning and providing feedback on Tier I instruction. The Reading and Math intervention specialists is in charge of a small group that are scheduled daily each period.

We use Family Engagement Funds to teach parents math and reading strategies to be used at home. These strategies will support and complement the lessons that teachers implement.

ESEA funds also provide district level specialists in the area of ELA, Math, and Science to support secondary instruction. Their involvement will be to assist teachers.

In addition, social workers, technology, and parent liaisons are funded and paid by Title I funds. These viable resources augment the success of our students.


Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
At our school, teachers are always learning how to improve their delivery of lessons. Some of the strategies employed are:

discussing book and article studies on best practices
offering staff development by teachers
conducting Socratic Seminars
requiring Cornell notes
annotating the text
citing evidence
analyzing DBQ's
challenging students with higher level questioning strategies
having students expand on responses
emphasizing critical writing attributes
engaging students in discourse
focusing on Open Ended response
engaging students in collaborative group work
strengthening modeling and reasoning strategies for math
providing assistance to new teachers and getting them on board with all of the expected teaching strategies





Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
State assessment data is disaggregated immediately. Core team members extrapolate trends, patterns, etc. They set in action the goals and objectives for a 90 day plan. One of the primary focuses is closing the achievement gap by aligning and designing lessons that differentiate learning.

Each team of content area teachers analyze data detailing how learning intentions are written and how questions are written to adjust instruction to meet the needs of the students.

All teachers analyze data to determine the root cause and actuate their own responsiveness to their students' academic needs and success.

Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Our mantra is our commitment to provide quality education through best practices. We ensure responsive instruction for all students. We have non-negotiables that we have implemented to keep the focus on high level learning while keeping the cultural, home and community experiences in mind. We tailor instruction for our students who are EL, SWDs, and struggling students. Teachers teach with rigor and intensity, and provide prescriptive tutoring for those at different levels of learning. Our priority is to instill in our students, the importance of coming to school prepared to learn.

Our weekly "PLC" Wednesdays, have been a combination of data mining and sharing best practices on book and article studies we read. We mark the text, cite evidence and do Socratic Seminars at PLC and then go back to practice what we've learned. Teachers have also been receptive to the idea of conducting staff development for other staff members. .





Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: 7 - 8
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 9,339
    Student Enrollment: 650
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 0.5%
    White/Caucasian: 2%
    Hispanic: 95%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0.5%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:30
    % Reduced Lunch: 100%
    % ELL Learners: 51%
    Founded: 1978
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Rosa E. Lovelace
  • CONTACT:
    4800 McNutt Road
    Santa Teresa, NM 88008
    915-867-1414
    relovelace@gisd.k12.nm.us