At their January board meeting, the Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 school district heard from its principals about recent STAR assessments and discussed staffing and retention.

At the meeting’s open, Superintendent Tom Burris moved that the board remove the executive session from the agenda on the advice of district attorney Brad Miller.

The Lewis-Arriola Elementary School’s student government informed the board about the holiday community service that they did in November and December, including singing at nursing homes, running a food and winter clothes drive and serving as fifth grade and kindergarten reading buddies.

Lewis-Arriola Principal Angela Sauk said their food drive has two years of success and thanked participants for their help.

The board also received reports on data provided by the STAR assessments taken in 2023. The assessments help provide data about students’ performance in key subjects.

Kemper Elementary Principal Kathleen Nelson said students saw growth in math and English, with scores in the 45th and 50th percentile, but fell short of the goal for all scores to be at 50 or higher.

Sauk said that all the grades at Lewis-Arriola Elementary were above the 50th percentile.

Mesa Elementary Principal Robert Layman was sick and unable to attend the meeting, so Assistant Principal Crystal Croke reported that Mesa’s kindergarten and third grade math scores showed growth while fourth graders showed growth in math and reading.

She reported that revamped intervention teams will work on raising other scores.

“Overall, we’re not where we want to be, but plans are in place,” Croke said.

Montezuma-Cortez high School Principal Jennifer Boniface said she is promoting testing among students, and middle school Principal Drew Pearson said the results were on par with year’s, when the middle school was at the 48th percentile for math in fall and 55th percentile for math in spring.

This fall, scores fell to the 46th percentile for math, which Pearson attributed partly to the departure half the math department. He hopes for scores to rise when staff become acclimated to the job.

Reading, however, was another story. Middle school reading was in the 57th percentile, while last year was in the 40th percentile. The improvement is 17 percentage points.

Pearson said he was really encouraged and “pretty happy, all things considered.”

At the high school, 44 freshmen were at or above grade level and 91 were below, and 67 sophomores were above grade level and 65 below. Forty-nine juniors were above grade level, and 64 were below. Twenty-nine seniors were above, and 27 were below.

For average math growth, with a goal of 50th percentile, freshmen were at the 38th percentile, sophomores 50th percentile, juniors 44th percentile and seniors 51st percentile.

In reading, freshmen were scored in the 47th percentile, sophomores 55th percentile, juniors 51st percentile and seniors 54th percentile.

Boniface acknowledged the low turnout, adding that many students opted out of testing, making it difficult to analyze the data.

The number of students testing has increased. In fall, 127 freshmen, 120 sophomores, 117 juniors and 79 seniors tested.

During the winter testing, 139 freshmen tested, 133 sophomores, 128 juniors and 90 seniors.

Boniface plans to send notices to parents and plan something during testing week to build enthusiasm for testing.

The board said a staff satisfaction survey was coming up. The district has 27 open positions, including those with long-term substitute teachers in place.

Skylar Robinson, former high school volleyball coach, complained that her contract was not renewed. Robinson, a graduate of MCHS, said she loved coaching the girls team.

“I am deeply saddened and confused as to why I won’t be able to continue coaching my girls,” Robinson said, tearfully thanking the team before finishing her address.

In action items, the board renewed the charter applications for both Kiva Charter School and Battle Rock Charter School.

Kiva’s renewal was approved unanimously, while new board member Rhonda Tracey was the only member who voted against Battle Rock’s renewal.

The next Montezuma-Cortez school board meeting is Feb. 27 at 6 p.m.