Montezuma-Cortez school district Superintendent Tom Burris on Thursday provided school data information to district staff, congratulating them on their work that resulted in all district schools being off the state clock. According to Burris, there has been at least one school on the clock since 2016 or even before.
While there is always room for improvement, today is a celebration of the commitment of the entire staff,” Burris said. “I cannot tell you how thrilled I am and how proud I am of all of you. Your belief in kids and your hard work does pay off. Thank you!”
In the email provided to The Journal by district HR Director Justin Schmitt, five years of the district’s schools accreditation statuses was outlined, showing the school’s improvement since 2019 and following COVID-19.
Last year, Mesa Elementary successfully got off the state’s clock after seven years on the clock.
Six labels are given to schools in the state of Colorado based on their performance. The highest level is performance (green), improvement (yellow), priority improvement (orange), turnaround (red) and two levels of insufficient data.
Out of 1,927 schools in the state, 61.8% are in performance status and 21.3% in improvement status.
There are seven district accreditation ratings, starting with accredited with distinction (blue), and followed by accredited level (green), accredited with an improvement plan (yellow), accredited with a priority improvement plan (orange), accredited with turnaround plan (red) and two categories that are used when there is insufficient data to accurately tell the district’s status.
The state has 179 districts, 110 of them labeled as “small rural” and 36 rural. Only 6% of the districts are are accredited with distinction (11), 27% accredited (50) and 22% accredited with improvement (40).
As of the 2024 data, all schools in Montezuma-Cortez district are labeled performance or improvement.
Schools with a Performance Plan are meeting expectations on the majority of performance metrics. Schools with an Improvement Plan may meet expectations on some performance metrics, but they do not meet or only approach expectations on many metrics.
In 2019, Lewis-Arriola was labeled performance at 59.2%. There is no data for 2020-2021 due to the pandemic, so the next data year was 2022, where Lewis-Arriola was labeled as insufficient data. In 2023, their performance rate had jumped from the 2019 number to 66.9%. Now, in 2024, it is at 70.2%.
In 2019, Kemper was labeled priority improvement (40.9%) and priority improvement at 41% in 2022. Though they jumped to a performance rating of 54.1% in 2023, they dropped one level in 2024, going down one level to improvement at 50.2%.
In 2019, Mesa was labeled improvement at a rate of 46.5%, but dropped to the red in turnaround status at 28.6% following the pandemic. In 2023, the school got off the state clock with an improvement rate of 47.5%. This year, they are on the performance level at 57.5%, advancing one level over the course of one school year.
The middle school started in 2019 at improvement (47.7%) before falling to turnaround status (32.1%) in 2022. In 2023, the school had moved to improvement at 51.7%, and in 2024 they are at performance level with 61.7%.
In 2019, MCHS was in improvement status at 50.8%, only dropping slightly post-COVID to 44.9% in 2022. In 2023, however, the school fell to priority improvement at 48.7% before advancing a level back to improvement at 46.7% in 2024.
The district as a while was labeled as priority improvement (43.3%) in 2019 and 39.2% in 2022. In 2023, the school made a jump to improvement at 46.8%, and is in the higher level of improvement in 2024 with 51.2%. The district, as of 2024, is no longer on watch.
“When I came here, I asked, ‘What would it take to make us a school district of choice?’ You have answered the question tenfold,” Burris said. “It has been your hard work and using the right tools. You have improved the outcomes for kids. This has been a combined effort of all staff, from all departments and to the teachers in the classroom. Today is your day to shine. We did it, you made dreams happen and we made this district better.”
