According to the most recent state education test results, Florida Mesa Elementary School has turned itself around.
Just last year, the Colorado Department of Education declared Florida Mesa a “priority improvement” school – a dire designation reserved for the lowest 15 percent of schools in the state based on the growth of all students.
In a stunning reversal, the school has now earned itself a “performance” designation according to Colorado Academic Standards – meaning its test scores improved so prodigiously in the last 12 months that it skipped one of four statuses – “improvement” status – altogether.
Florida Mesa principal Laurie Kloepfer said the school was overjoyed at the news and deeply gratified.
“We’re very excited, really excited. We were dancing in the halls when we got the news,” she said.
“We made the announcement on the speakers before school started in the morning. And teachers really were dancing in halls,” she said.
Kloepfer said the bulk of Florida Mesa students’ improvement came in reading, because of a wholesale re-evaluation of the school’s curricular standards, a hard-working faculty, parents who were determined to stick with the school despite its troubles and talented interventionists – teachers who specialize in handling academic emergencies.
She said there were no disparities between the growth made by students in general and specific student populations, such as students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and those who belong to ethnic minorities.
Keith Owen, deputy commissioner with the state Education Department and former Durango School District 9-R superintendent, said the school’s progress was remarkable.
“They’ve had a pretty dramatic improvement. It’s not a small thing to skip two categories; you don’t get there with modest gains.
“I think that is what the school is celebrating,” Owen said. “You have to move your overall growth and your overall achievement forward in order to change categories like that.”
He said the school’s upward trajectory also vindicated district Superintendent Daniel Snowberger’s decision to shake up Florida Mesa last September, though at the time, Snowberger was still in his first months on the job.
After Florida Mesa was again declared a priority improvement school last year, Snowberger, in a controversial decision that surprised local parents, ousted well-liked principal Cindy Smart. He replaced her with Kloepfer, who at the time was the district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction. The teaching faculty remained intact.
In a Tuesday phone interview, Kloepfer talked about continuing improvement at the school.
“This year, we’re going to be focusing on math. That’s where our work is cut out for us,” she said.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
