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LA Schools Reopen, But Recovery Will Be Long and Painful – The 74
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It was just after 1 am when Los Angeles charter school superintendent Ian Mcfeat started getting text messages and phone calls at a relative’s house where he was sheltering from the fires.
His neighbors said his house was burning down in the wildfires – along with his entire Altadena neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Aveson School of Leaders, which McFeat runs and where his kids attended school just three blocks from his house, was also burning.
Unable to sleep, Mcfeat drove away from his in-law’s house that he’d been evacuated to and made the drive back to Altadena.
He drove through the fire lines and into his neighborhood to see if he could salvage anything, save anyone, or put out the fires that had raged on the east side for more than 48 hours straight, and decimated the Palisades in the west.
He was greeted with a scene out of a horror movie. Fueled by a violent windstorm and piles of brush left from a particularly wet winter last year, the firestorm was like a tornado shooting flames, blasting through his neighborhood.
“It was like driving through a bomb scene,” said Mcfeat. “There were homes exploding. I probably shouldn’t have been there.”
Despite the devastating losses, Mcfeat can’t imagine not rebuilding his home and school right where they were in Altadena. But the road to recovery will be a long and painful one.
“No doubt about it. We are going to rebuild,” said Mcfeat. Aveson has started a GoFundMe. At this point, a new site for the school has not been identified. The district hasn’t been able to help them yet.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Mcfeat.
The wildfires that burned Los Angeles this month are the costliest and most destructive in the city’s history, displacing more than 150,000 residents and killing at least 25 people. Two massive blazes fed by windstorms, the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, simultaneously scorched the city from the sea to the mountains, filling the air with vast plumes of ash and smoke.
As the wind and flames began to retreat last week, and firefighters gained control of the fires, schools began to reopen. And the kids began to return to class.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, which is by far the largest district of about 80 in Los Angeles County, resumed instruction Monday after being totally closed since last Thursday. Seven schools remain shut because they’re located in evacuation zones. Another three won’t reopen because their buildings were badly burned or destroyed in the fires.
Dozens of much smaller districts in Los Angeles County also reopened this week, with the exceptions of two districts, Pasadena Unified, which encompasses Altadena, and La Cañada Unified, which neighbors Altadena to the west.
The Eaton fire has destroyed at least five schools but was mostly contained by Friday.
Kids from two of the LAUSD schools that burned in the Palisades, Marquez Charter Elementary School and Palisades Charter Elementary School, were placed, with intact school rosters, in close-ish LAUSD school buildings that already had other schools in them.
The students who attended the burned schools were given their own entrances, classrooms and courtyards for kids to play. When parents dropped them off at class this week, there were a lot of tearful reunions.
Families from Palisades Charter were somber, but excited to return to normalcy with their new space located inside of Brentwood Science Magnet School.
Joseph Koshki, a parent from the Palisades whose son attends third grade at Palisades Charter, walked holding hands with his son to their new classroom at Brentwood Science, which had been stacked with balloons.
“When he saw his school burned on the news he was crying for days,” Koshki said of his child. “But when he heard that he was going to his new school with his old friends, he was so happy”.
Nina Belden, a parent of a Palisades Charter student who had made an emergency evacuation from her house in the Palisades with her family, said it was important for the students at her daughter’s school to stay together and receive in-person instruction.
“We were worried they were going to do something like remote learning,” said Beldon.
Marquez Charter, which also burned in the Palisades fire, has a long history in the community, having opened in 1955 when the Palisades still had a frontier feel, before the neighborhood became a favorite of Hollywood stars and media execs.
For Victoria Flores, who works as a paraeducator at Marquez, the school is part of her family. Flores went to Marquez when she was in elementary school, and her mother works in the cafeteria.
“It was my home away from home. We are devastated by what happened,” Flores said.
But Flores said she and the rest of the staff were glad to be relocated together at a LAUSD school called Nora Sterry, about ten miles from the burned Marquez campus.
“We are a really close family,” said Flores. “That’s helped us a lot.”
Upstairs at Nora Sterry, Clare Gardner’s class had about eight of twenty students show up on the first day of relocation.
Her third-grade class was playing with clay and Mrs. Gardner, who is a twenty-seven-year veteran of Marquez, held back her tears as she helped students arrive into class.
“We always call it the Marquez family,” Gardner said as the children greeted each other.
One boy in Mrs. Gardner’s class said he was happy to be around his friends and teacher but sad about his classroom fish and books, which were lost in the fire.
Later in the morning, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho went to visit parents at Nora Sterry.
After nearly a week off school, Carvalho says attendance is still below normal.
“I think where that attendance is lacking is in schools that were directly affected” by the fires, Carvalho said.
Also hurting attendance, Carvalho said, is the fact that many families are enduring temporary relocations, while others lack stable housing entirely.
LAUSD staff attendance is back to normal, he said, while student attendance is about 88% — down from an average of about 90%, representing about 10,000 fewer students than normal.
“As conditions of the families begin to normalize and stabilize, those [attendance] numbers will rise,” said Carvalho.
For other schools in other areas of Los Angeles, recovery may be longer in the making.
Bonnie Brinecomb, principal of Odyssey Charter School – South in Altadena, which burned to the ground in the Eaton Fire, estimates that the homes of 40% of the students enrolled in the school also burned.
Families and school staffers are scrambling to ensure displaced families have food, shelter and clothing, Brinecomb said. Some students are turning up for daycare at a nearby Boys and Girls Club that offered to take them in.
Brinecomb said Odyssey has partnered with McFeat’s school Aveson to search for new facilities. But the double loss of students’ homes and the schools’ campuses is a gutpunch.
“It’s just heartbreak. Pure shock,” she said. “You don’t even process how bad of a situation just happened.”
Like Aveson, Odyssey has launched an online fundraiser and Brinecomb says the school will rebuild. How long that will take, though, remains an open question.
From the perspective of displaced children and families, the faster things return to normal, the better, said Dr. Frank Manis, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Southern California.
The experience of trauma can intensify if routines are disrupted for longer periods, and the intensity of the disruption matters as well, said Manis. Kids who lost their homes to fires may have a harder time bouncing back than those who only lost their schools, he said.
“It’s sort of on that spectrum of wartime PTSD, but not as bad,” said Manis. “So what it could lead to is nightmares, difficulty sleeping, and emotional or behavior problems that can last for quite a while.”
Children fighting post-traumatic stress from the fires may become withdrawn, or act out in class, said Manis. But mostly, he said, the research from past natural disasters shows that even children badly impacted by the fires may begin to feel normal within a few months.
“Kids are pretty resilient,” said Manis. “But trauma can disappear for a while, and then it can resurface later. When everyone’s forgotten how bad it was, it can resurface.”
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PowerSchool Got Hacked. Now What? – The 74
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Were you a current or former student in the last few decades? Or a parent? Or an educator?
If so, your sensitive data — like Social Security numbers and medical records — may have fallen into the hands of cybercriminals. Their target was education technology behemoth PowerSchool, which provides a centralized system for reams of student data to damn near every school in America.
Given the cyberattack’s high stakes and its potential to harm millions of current and former students, I teamed up Wednesday with Doug Levin of the K12 Security Information eXchange to moderate a timely webinar about what happened, who was affected — and the steps school districts must take to keep their communities safe.
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Concern about the PowerSchool breach is clearly high: Some 600 people tuned into the live event at one point and pummeled Levin and panelists Wesley Lombardo, technology director at Tennessee’s Maryville City Schools; Mark Racine, co-founder of RootED Solutions; and Amelia Vance, president of the Public Interest Privacy Center, with questions.
PowerSchool declined our invitation to participate but sent a statement, saying it is “working to complete our investigation of the incident and [is] coordinating with districts and schools to provide more information and resources (including credit monitoring or identity protection services if applicable) as it becomes available.”
The individual or group who hacked the ed tech giant has yet to be publicly identified.
Asked and answered: Why has the company’s security safeguards faced widespread scrutiny? What steps should parents take to keep their kids’ data secure? Will anyone be held accountable?
In the news
Oklahoma schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, who says undocumented immigrants have placed “severe financial and operational strain” on schools in his state, proposed rules requiring parents to show proof of citizenship or legal immigration status when enrolling their kids — a proposal that not only violates federal law, but is likely to keep some parents from sending their children to school. | The 74
- Not playing along: Leaders of the state’s two largest school districts — Oklahoma City and Tulsa — rebuked the proposal and said they would not collect students’ immigration information. Educators nationwide fear the incoming Trump administration could carry out arrests on campuses. | Oklahoma Watch
- Walters filed a $474 million federal lawsuit this week alleging immigration enforcement officials mismanaged the U.S.-Mexico border, leading to “skyrocketing costs” for Oklahoma schools required “to accommodate an influx of non-citizen students.” | The Oklahoman
- Timely resource guide: With ramped-up immigration enforcement on the horizon — and with many schools already sharing student information with ICE — here are the steps school administrators must take to comply with longstanding privacy and civil rights laws. | Center for Democracy & Technology
A federal judge in Kentucky struck down the Biden administration’s Title IX rules that enshrined civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ students in schools, siding with several conservative state attorneys general who argued that harassment of transgender students based on their gender identity doesn’t constitute sex discrimination. Mother Jones
Fires throw L.A. schools into chaos: As fatal wildfires rage in California, the students and families of America’s second-largest school district have had their lives thrown into disarray. Schools serving thousands of students were badly damaged or destroyed. Many children have lost their homes. Hundreds of kids whose schools burned down returned to makeshift classrooms Wednesday after losing “their whole lifestyle in a matter of hours.” | The Washington Post
- At least seven public schools in Los Angeles that were destroyed, damaged or threatened by flames will remain closed, along with campuses in other districts. | The 74
Has TikTok’s time run out? With a national ban looming for the popular social media app, many teens say they’re ready to move on (and have already flocked to a replacement). | Business Insider
Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta restricted LGBTQ+-related content from teens’ accounts for months under its so-called sensitive content policy until the effort was exposed by journalist Taylor Lorenz. | Fast Company
Students’ lunch boxes sit in a locker at California’s Marquez Charter Elementary School, which was destroyed by the Palisades fire on Jan. 7. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday announced the participants in a $200 million pilot program to help schools and libraries bolster their cybersecurity defenses. They include 645 schools and districts and 50 libraries. | FCC
Scholastic falls to “furry” hackers: The education and publishing giant that brought us Harry Potter has fallen victim to a cyberattacker, who reportedly stole the records of some 8 million people. In an added twist, the culprit gave a shout-out to “the puppygirl hacker polycule,” an apparent reference to a hacker dating group interested in human-like animal characters. | Daily Dot
Not just in New Jersey: In a new survey, nearly a quarter of teachers said their schools are patrolled by drones and a third said their schools have surveillance cameras with facial recognition capabilities. | Center for Democracy & Technology
The number of teens abstaining from drugs, alcohol and tobacco use has hit record highs, with experts calling the latest data unprecedented and unexpected. | Ars Technica
ICYMI @The74
Librarians Gain Protections in Some States as Book Bans Soar
RFK Jr. Could Pull Many Levers to Hinder Childhood Immunization as HHS Head
Feds: Philadelphia Schools Failed to Address Antisemitism in School, Online
Emotional Support
New pup just dropped.
Meet Woodford, who, at just 9 weeks, has already aged like a fine bourbon. I’m told that Woody — and the duck, obviously — have come under the good care of 74 reporter Linda Jacobson’s daughter.
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- Not playing along: Leaders of the state’s two largest school districts — Oklahoma City and Tulsa — rebuked the proposal and said they would not collect students’ immigration information. Educators nationwide fear the incoming Trump administration could carry out arrests on campuses. | Oklahoma Watch
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Korean reality TV showcases language learning in the UK
The series, premiering on February 5, was filmed at Bell English Schools’s Cambridge premisis in August 2025, which hosted Dong-Il Sung, Kwang-Kyu Kim, Ki-Jun Um, Hyuk Jang, and Seung-Hwan Shin for two weeks in August 2024.
The program, Shala Shala, follows the actors’ authentic experiences of learning English alongside other students, taking part in activities, and staying with host families and in Bell Cambridge’s on-campus residences.
“These are male, middle-aged actors who are famous in South Korea, but who have got to a certain point in their career and maybe they want to try more roles in English or maybe they want to travel personally with their families,” Rebecca Stead, head of marketing at Bell Educational Services told The PIE News.
“So, the premise of the show was that it’s never too late to late to learn English,” Stead added.
To make it as authentic as possible, 50 hidden cameras were set up around the school to capture the actors’ true experiences taking classes with Bell’s summer learners.
While Stead maintained that the actors were “great students”, the program’s trailer reveals a somewhat bumpy path to language learning success.
“It was a big operation and really interesting for us staff to see how a TV program is made, and the other students were really excited to have the actors around,” she added.
The premise of the show was that it’s never too late to late to learn English
Rebecca Stead, Bell English
With seven schools for adult students and young learners across the UK, Bell’s Cambridge institution is its flagship location offering year-round language courses to learners of all ages.
“We’ve got these beautiful gardens and traditional buildings, and it’s in Cambridge, which is such an attractive destination. It’s very much that quintessential image of what a lot of people from other countries imagine the UK to be like,” Stead noted.
“Not only are we showcasing Bell but we’re also showcasing the UK and what a valuable experience it is to study and travel here, so hopefully it will be a positive thing for the industry as a whole.”
The program comes at a time of slowing recovery for the UK’s ELT sector, with levels likely to be a “new normal” for the sector, according to a recent report by English UK.
The program will be airing on YouTube as well as the South Korean television network JTBC on February 5, 2025.
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OfS approves renaming of UCLan and University of Bolton
In two separate hearings published on December 19, the OfS granted approval for the University of Bolton to be renamed the University of Greater Manchester, and for the University of Central Lancaster (UCLan) to become the University of Lancashire.
The regulator permitted Bolton becoming the University of Greater Manchester despite objections from the University of Manchester that the change would be “very confusing and misleading”. Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Salford also objected to the name change.
In a consultation on UCLan’s rebranding to the University of Lancashire, 90% of the 1,812 respondents said that the new name could be “confusing or misleading”, given that the existing Lancaster University carries the same official title.
During the ruling, the regulator considered the name change could be particularly confusing for international students “less familiar with contextual information” but concluded that it was “unlikely to lead to any material harm or detriment”.
The consultations in Bolton also garnered widespread opposition to the rebrand, with 64% of respondents saying the name change could cause confusion.
The OfS recognised that both instances could be confusing “for particular groups of stakeholders, including for example those for whom English is not their first language or who have difficulties in distinguishing or processing information”.
However, it concluded that “the range of contextual information that students use when applying to study” would help to prevent material harm arising from such confusion.
The name change is very good news for our students, very good news for the institution, very good news for the town and amazing news for jobs
Professor George Holmes, University of Greater Manchester
In both cases, the OfS ruled that its duties to protect the “institutional autonomy” of providers and “encourage competition” between universities weighted in favour of consenting to both new names.
In Bolton, the proposals to change the university’s name sparked backlash from local politicians and members of the public, with a motion put to Bolton Council in 2023 calling on the university to rethink the name change.
Announcing the news on December 19, vice chancellor Professor George Holmes told a group of staff members that he was “delighted” to announce the change.
“The name change is very good news for our students, very good news for the institution, very good news for the town and amazing news for jobs,” said Holmes, adding that it was “an important accolade to have the University of Greater Manchester based in Bolton”.
Professor Graham Baldwin, UCLan vice chancellor, also welcomed his institution’s new title, saying that it would “better reflect our regional economic importance and aid continuing efforts to raise brand awareness further afield.
“Locally the acronym UCLan was widely used but for many outside the region they didn’t know it was the title of a university nor where it was located,” said Baldwin.
On December 2, 2024 the OfS announced it was temporarily pausing the registration of new institutions, as well as suspending applications for an institution to change its name “where it already holds university title”. Applications already submitted would be completed, it said.
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Report on Grad Student Preferences
According To the New UPCEA and Collegis Report, 71% of Prospective Graduate Students Prefer Fully Online Programs
Findings highlight the need for strategic outreach to address master’s degree enrollment challenges in a competitive market
[Washington and Illinois] – December 16, 2024 – A new report released today by UPCEA, the online and professional education association, and Collegis Education, a higher education solutions tech-enabler, highlights the growing interest in online master’s degree programs that provide flexibility, transparency and streamlined communication in graduate programs. Based on a survey of over 1,000 prospective graduate students, Building a Better Pipeline: Enrollment Funnel Needs and Perspectives from Potential Post-Baccalaureate Students reveals key insights for higher education institutions aiming to improve graduate recruitment strategies.
“We are entering a period where every enrollment matters. Enrollment growth for graduate programs has been stagnant for the past 15 years, despite the number of baccalaureate degree holders growing. Future success requires colleges and universities to better align offerings with student preferences and communicating on their terms,” said Jim Fong, Chief Research Officer at UPCEA. “Listening to prospective students’ interests and addressing their needs provides a stronger roadmap for institutions to succeed in what will be a hyper-competitive landscape.”
Key findings from the report include:
- Delivery Preferences: Fully online programs are the most preferred format, with 71% of respondents showing strong interest, followed by hybrid formats (53%).
- Program Priorities: A specific program of study is the top consideration (54%), followed by institutional reputation (28%) and delivery method (18%).
- Communication Preferences: Email remains the preferred contact method for 47% of respondents during the inquiry process, with most willing to share basic details such as their name and email address.
- Engagement Challenges: Sixty-two percent of respondents said difficulty finding basic program information on an institution’s website would cause them to disengage. At the same time, financial concerns dominated the latter stages of the application process.
The report highlights a growing demand for master’s degree programs, which 65% of respondents identified as their top interest. It also points to an urgent need for institutions to address gaps in their outreach strategies to meet these demands effectively.
“As higher education faces tightening budgets, strategic investments in program delivery and candidate outreach have never been more important. These findings emphasize the need for a fully transparent graduate search experience – from program research to application – to engage and inform students so they can see the value and affordability from the start,” said Tracy Chapman, Chief Academic Officer of Collegis Education. ”Institutions that leverage data, technology, and talent can strengthen relationships with prospective students to build communication and trust.”
With graduate enrollment projected to grow by just 1.4% over the next five years, institutions must innovate to stay competitive. The report provides data-driven insights to help universities design more effective outreach and recruitment strategies, particularly in light of the 32% increase in master’s program offerings since 2017, which has led to a 15% decrease in average program size.
Actionable Insights for Institutions
With graduate enrollment projected to grow by just 1.4% over the next five years, institutions must innovate to stay competitive.The survey revealed that requiring too much personal information in online request-for-information (RFI) forms often leads to student disengagement. Institutions should streamline these forms and prioritize providing clear, accessible program details—such as tuition, course requirements, and job outcomes—on their websites. UPCEA’s analyses show that many institutions lack this essential information, which can deter potential applicants early in the inquiry process.
In light of the 32% increase in master’s program offerings since 2017, which has led to a 15% decrease in average program size, this report provides vital data-driven insights to help universities design more effective outreach and recruitment strategies.
Methodology
Conducted in August, the survey was completed by 1,005 qualified participants. Qualified respondents were between the ages of 18 and 64, held at least a bachelor’s degree, were not currently enrolled in a post-baccalaureate program, and were at least somewhat interested in pursuing further education. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of respondents were 55 to 64 years old, 18 percent were aged 46 to 54, and 14 percent were 23 to 26 years old, showing deep interest in fully online graduate programs regardless of age.
For more information on the survey findings, download the report at https://collegiseducation.com/insights/student-experience/research-report-graduate-student-perspectives/
# # #
About UPCEA:
UPCEA is the online and professional education association. Our members continuously reinvent higher education, positively impacting millions of lives. We proudly lead and support them through cutting-edge research, professional development, networking and mentorship, conferences and seminars, and stakeholder advocacy. Our collaborative, entrepreneurial community brings together decision-makers and influencers in education, industry, research, and policy interested in improving educational access and outcomes. Learn more at upcea.edu.
About Collegis Education:
As a mission-oriented, tech-enabled services provider, Collegis Education partners with higher education institutions to help align operations to drive transformative impact across the entire student lifecycle. With over 25 years as an industry pioneer, Collegis has proven how to leverage data, technology, and talent to optimize institutions’ business processes that enhance the student experience. With the strategic expertise that rivals the leading consultancies, a full suite of proven service lines, including marketing, enrollment, retention, IT, and its world-class Connected Core® data platform, Collegis helps its partners enable impact and drive revenue, growth, and innovation. Learn more at CollegisEducation.com.
Media Contacts:
UPCEA
Molly Nelson
VP of Communications
mnelson@upcea.eduCollegis Education
Alyssa Miller
alyssa@ammediaworks.com
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NM Vistas: What’s New in State Student Achievement Data?
By Mo Charnot
For NMEducation.comThe New Mexico Public Education Department has updated its student achievement data reporting website — NM Vistas — with a renovated layout and school performance data from the 2023-2024 academic year, with expectations for additional information to be released in January 2025.
NM Vistas is crucial to informing New Mexicans about school performance and progress at the school, district and state levels through yearly report cards. The site displays student reading, math and science proficiency rates taken from state assessments, as required by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. Districts and schools receive scores between 0 and 100 based on performance, and schools also receive designations indicating the level of support the school requires to improve.
Other information on the site includes graduation rates, attendance and student achievement growth. Data also shows rates among specific student demographics, including race, gender, disability, economic indicators and more.
PED Deputy Secretary of Teaching, Learning and Innovation, Amanda DeBell told NM Education in an interview that this year’s recreation of the NM Vistas site came from a desire to go beyond the state’s requirements for school performance data.
“We knew that New Mexico VISTAs had a ton of potential to be a tool that our communities could use,” DeBell said.
One new data point added to NM Vistas this year is early literacy rates, which measures the percentage of students in grades K-2 who are reading proficiently at their grade level. Currently, federal law only requires proficiency rates for grades 3-8 to be published, and New Mexico also publishes 11th grade SAT scores. In the 2023-2024 school year, 34.6% of students grades K-2 were proficient in reading, the data says.
DeBell said several advisory groups encouraged the PED to report early literacy data through NM Vistas.
“We were missing some key data-telling opportunities by not publishing the early literacy [rates] on our website, so we made a real effort to get those early literacy teachers the kudos that they deserve by demonstrating the scores,” DeBell said.
The PED also added data on individual schools through badges indicating specific programs and resources the school offers. For example, Ace Leadership High School in Albuquerque has two badges: one for being a community school offering wraparound services to students and families, and another for qualifying for the career and technical education-focused Innovation Zone program.
“What we are really trying to do is provide a sort of one-stop shopping for families and community members to highlight all of the work that schools are doing,” DeBell said.
The updated NM Vistas website has removed a few things as well, most notably the entire 2021-2022 NM Vistas data set. DeBell said this was because the PED changed the way it measured student growth data, which resulted in the 2021-2022 school year’s data being incomparable to the most recent two years.
“You could not say that the schools in 2021-2022 were doing the same as 2022-2023 or 2023-2024, because the mechanism for calculating their scores was different,” DeBell said.
However, this does leave NM Vistas with less data overall, only allowing viewers to compare scores from the latest data set to last year’s.
In January 2025, several new indicators are expected to be uploaded to the site, including:
- Student performance levels: Reports the percentage of students who are novices, nearing proficiency, proficient and advanced in reading, math and science at each school, rather than only separating between proficient and not proficient.
- Results for The Nation’s Report Card (also known as NAEP): Compares student proficiencies between US states.
- Educator qualifications: DeBell said this would include information on individual schools’ numbers of newer teachers, substitute teachers covering vacancies and more.
- College enrollment rates: only to be statewide numbers indicating the percentage of New Mexico students attending college after graduating, but DeBell said she later hopes the PED can narrow down by each K-12 school.
- Per-pupil spending: How much money each school, district and the state spends per-student on average.
- School climate: Links the viewer to results of school climate surveys asking students, parents and teachers how they feel about their school experience.
- Alternate assessment participation: Percentage of students who take a different assessment in place of the NM-MSSA or SAT.
“We want VISTAs to be super, super responsive, and we want families to be able to use this and get good information,” DeBell said. “We will continue to evolve this until it’s at its 100th iteration, if it takes that much.”
This year, the PED released statewide assessment results for the 2023-2024 school year to NM Vistas on Nov. 15. Results show 39% of New Mexico students are proficient in reading, 23% are proficient in math and 38% are proficient in science. Compared to last year’s scores, reading proficiency increased by 1%, math proficiency decreased by 1% and science proficiency increased by 4%.
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Uni equity scholarship applications up 35%
The admissions centre that handles university applications in NSW and the ACT has said students applying for equity scholarships has surged more than 35 per cent this year.
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2025 Teacher of the Year is first Indigenous honoree
By Kenn Rodriguez
For NMEducation.comHalloween 2024 is a holiday that won’t be soon forgotten by Bernalillo High School teacher Lorilei Chavez. You see, October 31 was the day she was honored as the first Indigenous teacher named New Mexico Teacher of the Year.
Sixth period was going as usual for Lorilei and her social studies class. The group was in the middle of a lesson when BHS principal, Alyssa Sanchez-Padilla, and her secretary came to the door with an urgent request: Bring your students to the school’s black box theater to bump up attendance for a guest speaker.
“And so, you know, as a teacher, I’m like, ‘Oh no, we’re in the middle of a lesson,’” she related. “You know, I don’t want to lose valuable teaching time. But if the principal is asking you to take your students somewhere, you know, you get going.”
As she walked with her students to the theater and the seventh-period bell rang, her principal asked to detour to sign some tutoring paperwork. While walking, Chavez noticed a few extra student resource officers.
“Like I was getting kind of like an inclination that something was going on, you know?” she said, noting she was dressed in 1980s style for Halloween, with a side ponytail and an off-the-shoulder shirt.
Still thinking there was a guest speaker, Lorelei came to the theater and saw the “shimmer of cheerleading pompoms” and a huge cheer erupted as she entered the room. Assuming the cheer was for the “guest,” she got a bit spooked and started to back out of the room, she said.
“My principal was behind me and she just put her hands on my shoulders and softly nudged me forward,” she recalled. “I saw my mom and rushed over to her. Then she points up at the ceiling and there was this huge banner that says ‘Lorelei Chavez, Teacher of the Year.’”
“And that’s when it all just hit and took me over. And then it went from joy, like surprise to joy to like pure happy tears,” she said.
“It’s a life moment I’ll never forget.”
From Bernalillo and back
Lorilei describes herself as a “very proud product of Bernalillo Public Schools.” Beginning with kindergarten near home on the Kewa Pueblo (Santo Domingo Pueblo), she spent all but one year of her young life in the BPS system, beginning with Santo Domingo School and ending with graduation from Bernalillo High in 2008.
“It’s funny because I remember being in high school thinking, ‘Oh, I want to go as far as I can. Like, I want to go to school in California. I want to go to college in Washington, D.C. And I don’t want to come back to Bernalillo,’” she recalled with a chuckle. “And then six years later, I ended up (substitute teaching) while going to college. I’ve been there ever since.”
Beginning her college career at Central New Mexico Community College, Lorilei got her basics taken care of before transferring to the University of New Mexico. She graduated in 2018 with a degree in Native American Studies and a minor in History. Though she started as an education major and shifted away, her experiences as a substitute convinced her to go through CNM’s Alternative Licensure program, which she finished in 2020.
“When I started subbing as I was going to (UNM), I realized that I had a really deep ability to connect with students on a level that maybe some of my colleagues weren’t able to,” she said. “Because our district is 48% Indigenous, a lot of the students that I worked with didn’t really have Indigenous teachers or teacher aides or even substitutes that looked like them.”
Since the Bernalillo school system works with seven different tribes, Lorilei said she feels it’s important that Native students have Indigenous role models in the school setting. She used simple examples, like seeing her dressed in Native regalia or “big Native earrings” and beaded medallions to honor Native heritage.
“I think that’s what allowed me to see that I would be a good educator,” she said. “I would have an impact on students if I did a shift and got my teacher certification.
“And so that I think is my main drive even to today, is my ability to connect with students, uplift them, hear their voices, allow them to feel seen in the classroom, which I think creates the motivation to continue their goals and succeed in whatever they’re trying to accomplish.”
Serving her community
Lorilei said being named the first Indigenous teacher to win the statewide Teacher of the Year award was obviously an honor. But because “a core value of Pueblo people is the idea of service,” she said she feels that she is representing more than herself in accepting the award.
“As I serve my community, I wake up every day knowing that I’m going to serve my students, my future generations as I represent Santo Domingo Pueblo,” she said. “I wake up every day thinking, ‘What impact am I going to make on my community and what impact am I able to make today on the future generation?’ So, winning an award like this has been really hard for me to accept and value the honor. Because I feel it doesn’t just belong to me. It comes from a community of educators that has raised me and taught me.”
With her Native American Studies background, she said she strives to balance Indigenous culture and Western education in a school setting.
“The people, the past EAs, the language teachers, the teachers who’ve taught me that have poured into my education, I think is what brought me to today,” Lorilei said. “With this title and this beautiful award, I’m able to bring home not only Santo Domingo but to the Bernalillo Public Schools. I think the pressure of being the first Indigenous Teacher of the Year is making sure I’m honoring not only my school but my students and the community that I come from.”
‘Indigenizing’ the Education System
Lorilei said that as Teacher of the Year, she will emphasize “Indigenizing” education in New Mexico, as well as supporting teachers’ mental health. The desire to bring more Native experiences, stories, and perspectives into public education is something that grew from her time in the UNM Native Studies program.
“Going to (UNM’s) Native American studies program as a college student really opened my mind to this understanding of needing to know your culture, your history, the laws and the narrative that existed in Native community,” she said. “Things that weren’t necessarily told in the history books that I studied or in the papers that I wrote. Things not in the curriculum that I was offered as a public school student.”
“So graduating from UNM NAS instilled this understanding that going back into the public schools that I work at… I had no choice but an obligation to encourage our district and hold our district accountable when adopting curriculums and encouraging Native history in the core curriculum,” she concluded.
Lorilei said she and her fellow educators in the Bernalillo Public Schools “are blessed” to have a district leadership that understands the equity and value of bringing in Native languages and history as a core content.
She also said she feels very fortunate for the opportunity to work in a district that allows her the opportunity to build a curriculum that includes Indigenous history – subjects like the Pueblo Revolt, boarding schools, Native removal, sovereignty and decolonization, in a “school building that was not necessarily built for Indigenous education but built for Western education.”
“As the first Indigenous teacher of the year, I feel like that also is my obligation and duty, is to work to continue to advocate, to educate, so that we can uplift Native narrative, history, stories in curriculum,” she said. “Not just in high student of color populations, but in districts across the state.
“It is a passion of mine to Indigenize education and bring Indigenous perspective in Western curriculum. And so that’s something that I’m going to really push toward and be passionate about and continue to advocate for moving forward,” she related.
Prioritizing balance for teachers
Lorilei also said she is “super passionate” about state leadership and school districts starting a movement around prioritizing teacher mental health. She said she plans to “really pour some energy in as Teacher of the Year.” As a teacher working at the high school level, she said implementing teaching materials and testing guides, and “doing all the things that I need to do as a teacher to be the best teacher” leaves her drained at times.
“Balancing all of that with my life and my culture and everything that I am as a human being, an auntie, a sister, a cousin, is very difficult,” she said. “I really think as a state and as a nation, we really need to take a deeper look into how we are healing our teachers. How are we showing up for them in capacities that include mental wellness? And that includes body health and that includes spiritual strength in whatever capacity that they connect to.”
She concluded: “My goal and my hope is to really work with school districts, including mine, to have wellness days, wellness fairs, professional development days where teachers are paid to take time to take care of their mental health… because we’re so spread thin from the many, many things we have to do as educators.
“I’d really like to see us looking at an innovative way to address teacher wellness in ways that maybe the state and the nation haven’t before.”
The New Mexico Teacher of the Year program is sponsored by The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. The award of $ 10,000 will go to Lorilei to help with professional development opportunities and support her travel needs.
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APS progressing monitoring shows mixed results from 2024 assessments
Last year’s Albuquerque Public Schools third-graders identified in the Yazzie-Martinez decision plus African American students fell short of the reading proficiency goal set by the district in its first year of concerted progress monitoring under a new strategic plan, according to a report released earlier this month.
APS administrators pointed out during an October 2 school board meeting that these third-graders, identified in the Yazzie-Martinez decision plus African Americans, were kindergarteners during the Covid-19 pandemic, and spent much of that formative year learning online, which served them poorly.
The review is part of the district’s plan to monitor progress towards the four goals adopted by the APS Board of Education in 2023, aligned with the district’s new Emerging Stronger Strategic Plan. Each of the four goals have interim goals that serve as indicators of progress.
Goal One of the district’s four overarching goals calls for a 10 percentage-point increase in reading proficiency among that group of third-graders between 2023 and 2028. The interim goal for spring of 2024 was to raise the rate from 2023’s 27.3 to 28.3.
Instead, last year’s third-graders actually slipped to a proficiency rate of 25.3.
The district is still devising individualized strategies to catch kids up, officials told board members.
“Strategic measures moving forward can be summarized by the word specificity,” Antonio Gonzales, deputy superintendent of leadership and learning told the board. This means getting detailed in determining what different subgroups need, for example special education and English language learners students need, and how to provide for those needs.
“We know that we have a strategy in place, and that’s great. And I believe in the strategy that we have in place. But what this strategy calls us to action on is being specific and specific by student,” Gonzales said.
APS has not modified its five-year goal, but now predicts that the current year’s proficiency rate for identified third-graders will be 26.6 percent, rather than the 29.3 percent that would keep the district on track to meet the ultimate goal.
The board also heard reports on two sub-goals, where the news was decidedly better.
Interim Goal 1.1 focuses on the reading proficiency rates of first graders as measured by Istation formative assessments given at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. “This interim assessment gives teachers real-time insights into each student’s reading abilities to help inform instruction and provide intervention,” said a slide presentation produced by the district.
The three-year target for Interim Goal 1.1 is to increase the proficiency rate of first graders in the targeted groups by six percentage points—from 17 percent in 2023 to 23 percent in 2026. Students significantly exceeded that goal last school year, ending the year with a 24.1 percent proficiency rate.
Interim Goal 1.2 has a three-year target of increasing the percentage of second-grade students identified in the Yazzie-Martinez decision plus African American students who demonstrate grade level proficiency or above as predicted by Istation from 18.3% in May 2023 to 24.3% in May 2026.
By the end of last school year, 26.3 percent of those students were proficient.
If these trends hold, it will suggest that the performance of last year’s third-graders was a Covid-related aberration, and that students on the grades that follow are performing significantly better.