Educators throughout Albuquerque are uniting efforts to advance student achievement.
On Sept. 22, Dr. Gabriella Durán Blakey, Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent, addressed 250 education and business leaders at the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce’s annual Education Matters Luncheon at Hotel Albuquerque in Old Town.
Superintendent Durán Blakey delivered an impressive keynote after stepping in at the last moment for the Chamber’s signature education event. Dr. Katie Jenner, Indiana’s secretary of education, was originally scheduled to speak but was grounded in Dallas due to weather just hours before the luncheon. The superintendent’s seamless transition and compelling presentation earned praise from attendees.
Here’s what our superintendent shared with the audience:
“At Albuquerque Public Schools, we are building critical thinkers, problem solvers and good communicators,” Durán Blakey said. “We are molding our students into engaged citizens, driven by a growth mindset. We are pushing them to be innovative, collaborative and socially and culturally aware. We are teaching them to persevere, and at the end of the day, we want them to be advocates for themselves — for their families and for those in this world who can’t stand up for themselves.”
Durán Blakey put the spotlight on a few of the diverse programs — including the International Baccalaureate program available at Sandia High and Cleveland Middle schools, as well as environmental STEM pathways at various schools.
In making these changes, she said it’s helped push graduation rates within these programs to exceed 96% — with many students earning college credits or professional certificates.
Durán Blakey said she takes pride in being the leader of one of the largest school districts in the nation and that work in the public schools does serve every child.
“Public education is a powerful promise that every child, no matter their ZIP code, their background, their language or learning needs, deserves an excellent education in their school,” she said. “It’s a promise to prepare students, not just for the next assignment, but for life, and it’s a promise to our communities to bring people together, to build understanding and to create a better future ahead. And it’s a promise to our staff to support, to challenge and to empower them to do their best work every single day, for every single child. I am in awe of our staff and the breadth of services that they provide, from our pre-K programs for three- and four-year-olds to our transition service programs for students 18 to 21, every day. They make a promise that is real for our students. We are proud of the options that we offer to our students and families and what we know is not a one-size-fits-all district.”
Durán Blakey highlighted additional APS moves and programs that are providing more pathways to student success. These include:
- Implementing the K-12 environmental STEM pathway at Mountain View Elementary, Hope Middle and Rio Grande High schools.
- Launching the engineering and future magnet program at Mission Avenue Elementary, Garfield Middle and Valley High schools.
- Expanding the family school model at Desert Willow and Coyote Willow to provide more students with the unique blend of classroom learning and parent-led home-schooling.
- Continuing to grow the College and Career High School partnership with CNM to help more students earn their high school diploma and an associate’s degree or professional certificate.
- Implementing the Academies of Albuquerque model at high schools to connect students with real-world career pathways and industry partnerships.
- Offering electives at the Career Enrichment Center like Practical Nursing and EMT programs, providing hands-on experiences and leadership development.
- Having APS students participate in various extracurricular activities, earning nine state championships last year in athletics and activities.
- Ensuring every elementary student takes art and music classes and middle and high schools have robust art and music programs.
Emphasizing the importance of attendance, noting that chronic absenteeism remains a concern, especially among elementary students.
Durán Blakey said the district continues to partner with Central New Mexico Community College to look at workforce development data. By doing this, she said students can be better prepared for jobs in New Mexico.
“It’s really important that as we build our academies, that we’re building them for jobs that our students see or are available here. One of the things that we are doing is that we have the Career Exploration Expo,” she said. “Although it sounds like a traditional kind of job fair, it’s very unique in the fact that for whatever school it is, the job there is based on what is in the pathways at that particular school. The second thing that we’ve done is that at those job fairs … if it’s somebody who graduated from Albuquerque, they have like a little seal on their booth so that kids can see that these are people that have given back to the community, that have successful jobs, that went to the same hallways of the school that they attended. For a lot of our students, they need a role model. This shows them what it looks like after they graduate from high school and what it means to stay invested in Albuquerque.”
Durán Blakey capped off her keynote with an engaging 25-minute Q&A session, fielding diverse questions with expertise that impressed the audience!
