{"id":95703,"date":"2019-02-03T21:18:04","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T04:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/graduation-rates-different-issues-face-neighboring-schools\/"},"modified":"2019-02-03T21:18:04","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T04:18:04","slug":"graduation-rates-different-issues-face-neighboring-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/graduation-rates-different-issues-face-neighboring-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduation rates: Different issues face neighboring schools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mortarboards
Mortarboards are tossed at the end of the 2017 Ignacio High School commencement.<\/span>Pine River Times file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When examining graduation rates, Bayfield and Ignacio high schools face two almost polar opposite challenges.<\/p>\n

Bayfield High<\/a> must work to maintain high graduation rates that frequently finish at the top in La Plata County. In 2018, BHS\u2019s four-year graduation rate came in at 89.5 percent, the best in the county and well above the state\u2019s 80.7 average graduation rate. In fact, the 2018 rate was a drop for BHS. In 2017, its graduation rate was 91.1 percent.<\/p>\n

Ignacio High<\/a> strives to improve a graduation rate that annually struggles to reach the state average. In 2018, IHS\u2019s four-year graduation rate was 78.1 percent. That\u2019s an improvement from 2017, when its graduation rate was 75 percent.<\/p>\n

Ignacio High School<\/div>\n

Kathy Pokorney, Ignacio\u2019s curriculum and assessment director, said the increase in graduation rate shows efforts the school has made over several years are starting to pay off.<\/p>\n

The district has worked to bolster both its advance-placement offerings and its career technical education offerings to meet needs of diverse students \u2013 from those looking at college to those looking to enter the trades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be mindful of the things that are important to our kids and what their post-secondary options are going to be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The school has partnered with San Juan College<\/a> in Farmington to offer in-state tuition on classes that provide college credit. It also partners with Western Colorado University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pokorney said another partnership is with the Southern Ute Indian Tribe\u2019s Education Department, with a focus on improving attendance.<\/p>\n

The district is also working to improve students\u2019 performance on the ACT, SAT and PSAT tests, and it uses students\u2019 results as an assessment on the effectiveness of the school\u2019s curriculum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look at kids individually and try to provide whatever each one needs,\u201d Pokorney said. \u201cAre some years better than others? Yes. Are some kids more academically focused? Yes. Is there always room for improvement? Yes. But we\u2019ve come a long way in the past couple years, and it\u2019s starting to show and that\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bayfield High School<\/div>\n

Bayfield School Superintendent Kevin Aten said the school is helped by using NWEA<\/a>, an educational nonprofit that offers assessment tools for schools. NWEA\u2019s MAP tests are given from the third through eighth grades.<\/p>\n

The assessments, given three times a year, provide the district with an accurate measure of each student\u2019s proficiency in subjects and a measure of their rates of growth. Data from the tests can be used to craft academic plans suited to individual students.<\/p>\n

\"Mortarboards
Mortarboards are tossed at the end of the 2017 Ignacio High School commencement.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The district also provides interventions for students who are struggling and sets aside personnel and time to work with struggling students.<\/p>\n

\u201cInterventions provide great benefits,\u201d Aten said.<\/p>\n

Bayfield still needs to work on strengthening the performance of minority students, Aten said. It has received an American Indian Measurable Success Initiative grant to offer after-school tutoring to Native Americans, with sessions crafted for each student\u2019s needs. The district also tries to run a special bus for the program if students need transportation.<\/p>\n

The school also works with Pueblo Community College Southwest<\/a> to provide concurrent college classes, and the school is working with PCC Southwest to create a site on campus similar to the setup recently opened at Durango High School.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome kids need a different scene,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will provide a college environment. They want to graduate, but they don\u2019t want to deal with the high school scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

The small size of the Bayfield district is also a benefit. \u201cWe have about 100 kids in each grade,\u201d Aten said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to have kids fall through the cracks at that size.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@ durangoherald.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bayfield High strives to maintain strong numbers; Ignacio focuses on growth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[2766,2765],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-95703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-bayfield-school-district","tag-ignacio-school-district-11-jt"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95703","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=95703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95703"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=95703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}