UIP Assurances
2024-2025 Aguilar UIP Assurances Document
Student Performance Priorities
Under the leadership of a new superintendent, Aguilar School District is going through an intensely collaborative effort beginning in 2022 to develop a new strategic framework. This process involves community members, parents, students, staff, and board members. The result will be the formation of a
guiding document that is representative of all stakeholders that not only defines our top priorities but lays out a framework for continuous improvement. The main categories of the strategic framework include: Vision, Mission, Values, Strategic Priorities, Goals, and Objectives. Each element in the strategic framework contains specific phased objectives. The phased objectives begin with analysis/plan development of the element, followed by strategic growth, and finally the maturity of that element. Each school within Aguilar School District is developing specific and time bound objectives associated with each element of the strategic framework with defined measurement tools to assess implementation. For example, while elementary may be focused on Pre-K-3rd grade reading, secondary will have a Pathways Focus. This process and product will drive improvement efforts that include but are not limited to academic achievement. Our schools are intensely focused on educating the whole child including academic, personal, professional, entrepreneurial, and civic development. This is a strong value statement that will be reflected in this plan. The other elements of the strategic framework were identified to help bolster the education of the whole child and improve the educational process in Aguilar School District.
Aguilar School District is a small rural school district at the base of the Spanish Peaks. Originally a mining/ranching/timber mountain community, Aguilar is evolving toward a tourist economy while maintaining it’s ranching heritage and adding growdomes for cannabis farming. Recent renovations in downtown seek to solidify the economy and entice others to invest in the downtown area.
Aguilar Elementary School (AES), a PreK-5 school, and Aguilar Jr./Sr. High Secondary, a 6th-12th are defined by staff with a clear guidance to approach teaching and learning through direct instruction and the Colorado Academic Standards. We are embedding the standards, creating content
curriculum maps and lesson identifying best practices (Hattie and Marzano’s High-Yield Practices). This current school year we are realigning Wonders English Language Arts materials in K-5th and Illustrative Math materials in Kindergarten through 12th grade. Common Literature materials are being aligned 6-12th .
Staff uses data and a body of evidence to include NWEA assessments, DIBELS assessments and progress monitoring, CMAS and classroom assessment data, to determine instructional needs at the school-wide, grade level and down to the individual level with RtI, while collaborating bi-weekly in Professional Learning Communities. What I Need (WIN) groups are used to fill gaps and to accelerate learning (depending on individual student need). We incorporate 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as a basis for our schoolwide discipline program actively incorporate Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) tenants. Aguilar Schools use a Whole Student Framework, which includes physical health and PE through the SPARK program as well as various health services like dental and hearing screenings and basic free dental care. All students participate in band. We offer universal free breakfast to all students. In addition ASD prioritizes social and emotional health through an SEL time built in to the daily schedule, teaching problem solving skills, individual and group counseling and promoting family/community involvement throughout the year. This period is called Wildcat Time. Our counselor is full time this year supported by the School Counselor Cohort Grant. The counselor supports all schools, administrates WildCat Time as an advisory, team-building and values-building class for all grade levels. Our FFA program is a strong program involving most secondary students.
Our school district has chosen to rely heavily on our district level assessment (Northwest Education Assessment – NWEA). We use this assessment fall, winter and spring to monitor academic progress as well as inform instruction and targeted intervention. Coming into this year, our students are mostly not at grade level, but WIN Clubs have already shown students growing up to two years so far. Our fall math and reading NWEA data shows we are slightly behind the national norm in every grade level. At the upper grade levels, we fully intend to meet or exceed the national norm by spring. Lower grade levels sometimes take more than a year to make up this deficit. Our three year growth data reveals that our students academically grow at a much faster rate than the national norm. In the 2023 school year, we are beginning with a promising direction in that our kinders who attended preschool in ASD all score above the national average in DIBELS.