ABQ JOURNAL: How did this elementary school increase its literacy proficiency by 20 percentage points?

This article was published in the Albuquerque Journal on November 1, 2025

On the southwestern edge of the South Valley, elementary students — many dressed in Halloween costumes — were visited Friday by Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Gabriella Blakey.

“Do you know why I’m here?” she asked a classroom full of second graders. “Because … you are some of the smartest kids in all of Albuquerque.”

An assessment administered last spring showed students at Pajarito Elementary displayed a 20.5 percentage-point increase in reading proficiency, jumping to 31.1% from 10.6% the previous year.

In early October, APS celebrated that reading and writing proficiency had jumped 4.8 percentage points across all of its schools, according to the assessment administered in spring 2025.

But Pajarito Elementary made some of the most notable gains on the assessment of any APS campus last spring. The Title I school is located just east of Pajarito Mesa, one of the poorest corridors in the state, with a median income of $10,839 in 2022, according to census data.

The school is considered an “emerging” school by APS, a designation given to “schools demonstrating improvement in academic achievement, moderate absenteeism, moderate teacher and leader turnover, moderate levels of suspension, and unstable cultures resulting in inconsistent performance that need district-directed resources and moderate coaching and support.”

So how did Pajarito Elementary pull off the massive increase?

Officials say a tailored focus on students’ comprehension of phonics.

Similar to what many in education circles have dubbed the “science of reading,” teachers have focused their teaching on the sounds of specific letters and letter groups to help students develop word recognition. Additionally, teachers have a coach to help them.

Aimee De Lora, who works for Central Region Educational Cooperative, an educational company that provides professional learning services based in Albuquerque, is stationed at the school via a grant from the state’s Public Education Department.

“I am helping the teachers implement those best practices. It can either be one-on-one coaching, I can help plan with the teachers, I can model for the teachers,” she said. “We set goals based on student goals or teacher behavior goals, and then we just monitor and implement those best practices.”

De Lora added that projections show the school expects to see those proficiency rates continue to grow.

“The teachers have been very, very willing to implement everything. It’s a huge combined effort. It’s a unified front,” she said. “So all of the teachers together have worked to implement the strongest, most evidence-based practices.”

De Lora also takes it upon herself to post different words across the campus with the letter combinations highlighted. For example, outside the front office, the word “marching” was taped to the window of the front office with the “ch” underlined.

“If you really look around, they’re hidden everywhere,” she said.

To commemorate their increased proficiency rating, the school was awarded a banner with their mascot — an eagle — and the phrase “Eagles Rising!”

“Your school is going to get this poster, so you can remember how smart you all are,” Blakey told the students as she hoisted the banner.

For first-year Principal Jessica Lacour, who emphasized the need to continue progress, the district leader’s visit following the increased test scores is a full-circle moment.

“I always like to tell everybody this is the first school that I taught at, my kids came to this school,” she said. “This is my community.”