Administrators Attend Conference to Improve Schools
By John Earp
Jal School Administrators attended the Model Schools Conference in the Washington, DC area June 22nd through 25th. The conference was five days in length, and was held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.
Superintendent Brian Snider said, “We were looking at different methods and techniques to use for school improvement. It’s a conference for continuous improvements. It’s about improving from where you are. So we’ve been making a lot of progress, but we needed something to kind of tie it all together. The conference basically tied it all together for us.”
Besides Mr. Snider, administrators from Jal Schools who attended the conference included Karen Komar, Buddy Little, Dusty Loftis, and Johnny Estrada.
Snider says the district has been seeing improvement in recent years in all areas. He said, “A district-wide strategic plan calls for more use of data. And that’s what we’re doing. And that’s what we learned at the conference, it falls right in line with our strategic plan. It was kind of reaffirming because a lot of what we are already doing is what they were advocating.”
According to the New Mexico Public Education Department statistics for the 2023-2024 school year (the most recent statistics available on the website nmvistas.org), the percentage of Jal Elementary students scoring proficient and above in math is 13%, 29% for reading proficiency, and 23% in science proficiency. For Jal Junior High School, proficiencies in math were 7%, reading 32%, and science 19%. For Jal High School, proficiencies in math, reading and science are less than 10%, 21% and 24%, respectively.
According to nmvistas.org, Jal Public Schools proficiencies are about average overall for New Mexico. According to nmvistas.org, Jal Schools spent $19,266.72 per student in the 2023-2024 school year, which is significantly above average for New Mexico overall. New Mexico has ranked last place in education for the past several years when compared with other states in the USA, according to U.S. News and World Report, obviously reflecting problems at a cultural, familial and state level, in addition to instructional and personal issues, such as individual student motivation and discipline.
