Las Animas Elementary School pulled an about face from being the
district underdog to reaping the rewards of its hard work.
Las Animas Elementary School pulled an about face from being the district underdog to reaping the rewards of its hard work.
A school with dismal test scores in the past, Las Animas boosted its API score from 470 in 2000 to 763 in 2007, the second highest in the district.
When the district was divided into magnet schools, “Las Animas was the school you were sent to if you couldn’t get in anywhere else,” Principal Silvia Reyes wrote in an application for the 2008 California Distinguished School Award. The California Department of Education invited Las Animas to apply for the award on the basis of a variety of criteria, including the federal and state accountability models.
While Reyes was putting together the 36-page application for the much-sought-after award, she was stunned when State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, called to congratulate Las Animas on receiving a completely different award, the prestigious Title I Academic Achievement Award.
“These outstanding schools have shown that with hard work and tight focus, the challenges of poverty, language and socioeconomic background can be overcome,” O’Connell said in a statement. “They have created high-quality, active learning environments where the achievement gap is closing.”
Title I Academic Achievement Award winners receive Title I federal funds for socioeconomically disadvantaged students. In receiving this award, winners have demonstrated that all students are making significant progress toward proficiency on the state’s academic standards.
“This award is proof that poverty is not an excuse for low performance,” said parent volunteer, Ardy Ghoreishi. He referred to “a cloud” of low performance that hangs over schools and said that many blame it on the English-learner population. Almost half the students enrolled in Las Animas in 2006 were designated EL students. And yet the school’s test scores continue to rise.
Teachers use research-driven methods and administrators conduct data-based assessments to raise the performance of students, who are informally assessed every six weeks. Reyes and her staff use the data generated by the assessments to target areas that may require extra time in the classroom. Additionally, a core program called Teachers Teaching Teachers is held once a week and allows teachers to conduct workshops for their colleagues to provide professional development.
Parents and teachers said this award was possible because of the efforts of Reyes.
“Something like this comes from the top,” said Armando Alvarez, the father of two students at Las Animas. A retired San Jose police officer, he devotes his free time to volunteering as a yard duty supervisor at the school. “She’s so hands on. She’s got her own drill gun. When the guys installed the classroom flags wrong, she fixed it herself.”
“She’s extremely in touch with every facet of the school,” Ghoreishi said. “A successful school is a combination of parts – teachers, parents, students, administration. She’s the glue that holds the school together. At the end of the day, she does this from the heart and she does it for the kids.”
Modestly, Reyes refused to take all the credit.
“It’s the teachers, the parents that made this happen,” Reyes said. “They are more than willing and happy to pitch in. We work side by side.”
The principal at Las Animas for nine years, Reyes turned the school’s reputation around, said Diana Torres, a parent who helped Reyes prepare the Distinguished School application. “When she took over the school, it was in dire straits.”
The school moved to a new campus just this year from its previous location at Wren Ave. The “old” Las Animas was the oldest school in the district. “It was in bad shape,” Reyes said, “with numerous infrastructure problems.” The new site, in southwest Gilroy, is modern and well-equipped, with four computers in each classroom and a computer lab that students use to practice their language skills. The school educates all the mobile migrant children in the district and houses the Dual Immersion program, where students learn English and Spanish simultaneously.
“We have a very diverse population,” Reyes said, “with incredibly diverse programs to match.”
