{"id":31785,"date":"2023-09-13T20:19:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-14T02:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-posts-mixed-marks-on-test-scores-plans-to-improve\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:46:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:46:20","slug":"dolores-posts-mixed-marks-on-test-scores-plans-to-improve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-posts-mixed-marks-on-test-scores-plans-to-improve\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores posts mixed marks on test scores, plans to improve"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lewis
Lewis Elementary maintained their school\u2019s performance rating while Mesa, Kemper and M-CMS showed improvement. (Unsplash)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

After receiving CMAS scores for the 2022-2023 school year, Dolores RE-4A Superintendent Reece Blincoe shared areas where the school hopes to improve and some of the district\u2019s goals and plans for the 2023-2024 school year.<\/p>\n

Overall, Blincoe said the school saw improvements on the Colorado Measure of Academic Success tests where they had struggled with during the 2021-2022 school year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we did OK,\u201d Blincoe said. \u201cOK to good. We fixed a lot of things that we were in the hole on last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the district\u2019s score were not where they want to be, and the district will be working on an improvement plan.<\/p>\n

When compared with the state average for meeting expectations, Dolores was about 10 percentage points behind. The state average for ELA in 2023 is 43.7% and 32.9% for math. Dolores\u2019 ELA percentage was 32.1% and math\u2019s was 24.5%.<\/p>\n

While they had \u201cgreat gains\u201d in math, Blincoe noted that English and Language Arts took a hit and emphasis would be added to this subject, as well as subgroups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely need to work on the ELA piece quite a bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Reece
Reece Blincoe, superintendent of Dolores School District Re-4A.<\/span>Kala Parkinson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In the elementary school, math scores were good and ELA was \u201capproaching good.\u201d It was a similar story in the middle school and high school, while math saw improvement, ELA saw a slight decline in performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe growth measure was not great,\u201d Blincoe said, adding, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get better on our students with disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another area Blincoe hopes to see improve in the current school year is the academic growth and achievement of students on free and reduced lunches.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur students in free and reduced lunches didn\u2019t meet the standard and we\u2019ve got to work on that,\u201d Blincoe said. \u201cHad they met that standard, we would have been in good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

High school CMAS scores are determined through SAT and PSAT scores, and while it\u2019s something Blincoe says they need to improve, he shared that he doesn\u2019t believe these standardized tests are the best way to determine how schools are doing, especially in a school where a high percentage of students are planning on going straight into a career instead of on to college.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that these tests don\u2019t factor in career certifications and training in trades and jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a false indicator,\u201d Blincoe said. \u201cI am totally opposed to the state using SAT and PSAT as the sole indicator of how our schools are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShould we get better on it? Sure,\u201d he said. \u201cCan we be better on it? Sure. But there\u2019s so many other things we\u2019re trying to help our kids with too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another struggle facing the school, and most districts in the state and across the country, is attendance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll hear this across the state. Our attendance is horrific,\u201d Blincoe said.<\/p>\n

During the 2022-2023 school year, Dolores saw multiple students miss 20 to 30 days of school, leading the district to create stricter attendance policies while trying to educate parents and students on the importance of attending school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs simple as this is, if the kids aren\u2019t here, they can\u2019t learn,\u201d Blincoe said. \u201cWe\u2019re cracking down on attendance. These kids have got to start coming back to school.\u201d<\/p>\n

High school Principal Justin Schmitt will give a presentation at the Dolores school board meeting on Friday to discuss attendance.<\/p>\n

Blincoe shared that the district has various plans to see improvement in their schools.<\/p>\n

They are starting their second year with the Get Better Faster program, which helps improve teacher instructional methods.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel like it\u2019s going really good,\u201d Blincoe said. \u201cWe found some teachers that are top-notch instructors, and we\u2019ve actually brought them in to help us help other teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The district is also diving deeper into data, helping teachers use data to know how to best help their students learn and improve in areas they are struggling, and Blincoe said that teachers will know where the kids in their classroom are at.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can understand where they may be falling short and where they may need to improve,\u201d he said. \u201cThe emphasis this year is data and looking at that data and working on weaknesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then we\u2019re working on our instruction,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe believe in our curriculum, and if we do the same things, we will continue to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2019, Dolores had a mean scale score of 739 in ELA and 730 in math, with 49 and 66 not meeting expectations, respectively.<\/p>\n

In 2022, since 2020 and 2021 don\u2019t have data due to COVID, ELA had a mean scale score of 739, and 36 students not meeting expectations, while the score was 730 in math with 49 not meeting expectations.<\/p>\n

2023 showed a mean scale score of 737 for ELA, with 38 not meeting expectations. In math, it had a score of 729 in math, with 48 not meeting expectations.<\/p>\n

The state average for ELA in 2023 is 43.7% and 32.9% for math. Dolores\u2019 ELA percentage was 32.1% and math\u2019s was 24.5%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

district saw improvements in math but setbacks in English<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,1727,155,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-county-school-district-re-2j","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81563,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31785\/revisions\/81563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31785"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}