Grad rates above average

The New Mexico Public Education Department released the graduation rates for the 2017-18 school year on Tuesday and nearly all of the local districts in eastern New Mexico once again topped the statewide average, including one of the two districts in the Land of Enchantment to receive a perfect 100 percent.

Melrose Municipal Schools joined Springer Municipal Schools as the only districts to tally a 100 percent graduation rate, up from 79.7 percent in the 2016-17 school year in Melrose.

Superintendent Jamie Widner said he was happy to see the figure released by the PED, but he doesn’t consider the state’s graduation rates to be the be-all and end-all for student success.

“Well it’s like the school grades, we obviously want to be as good as we can be, but my staff is just tremendous and the staff knows what success looks like and they know how to help kids and I don’t know that I need the PED to tell me what success is, although we certainly want to be at the top end as much as we can be,” he said.

Widner said he disagrees with the fact that some students who leave Melrose are counted against the district as a dropout if they don’t enroll in a new school.

“If we have a kid with us the whole time, we’re going to get them graduated, not because we’re easy but because we have people to work with kids to get it done,” Widner said.

Widner said Melrose graduated 16 students last year, noting the district’s lower student total, and thus lower ratio of students to teachers, allows the staff to get to know kids on a personal level, which aids student success.

Elsewhere in Curry County, Clovis boosted its graduation rate to 83 percent, up about 5 percent from the class of 2016-17. Texico posted a 93 percent graduation rate and Grady fell just below Melrose at 99.3 percent.

Clovis Superintendent Jody Balch said he was glad to see the rate moving up, but Clovis and other districts will need to continue tweaking the education process to meet students’ needs and help them graduate.

“The standard staying in school from 8 to 3 o’clock is just not fitting anymore and that’s why next year we’re hoping to have the iAcademy open at Lincoln Jackson and the early college high school partnered with Clovis Community College and I believe those are the kind of venues that are that are going to be necessary to have kids being interested in graduation from high school and getting ready for a career,” Balch said.

In Roosevelt County, Portales was the only local district to fall below the statewide average of 73.9 percent with a 65.2 percent graduation rate, a 12 percent drop from the previous year.

Superintendent Johnnie Cain said he believes the majority of Portales’ dropouts comes from the district’s online program which seeks to help students who previously dropped out earn their diploma.

“We started this program several years ago and we realized because of the way the state looks at these things it would probably come back from time to time and show our rates are lower but we also feel it’s worthwhile to help people graduate if they can,” Cain said.

Elsewhere in Roosevelt County, Elida (92.6 percent) and Dora (90.1 percent) dropped a bit from last year’s 100 percent rates, while Floyd (87.7) remained relatively static, falling just 0.1 percent.