The Quemado School District is located in northern Catron County, a rural and sparsely populated area stretching over 4000 square miles. Quintessential one-room schools were scattered across the county in the early 1900s. Ranch owners often provided these schools for their children and the children of their employees.

Over the last 100 years, these small schools consolidated until the current arrangement of the Prek-12 school in Quemado and a satellite elementary school in Datil. Approximately 100 families and 165 students are currently served in the district.

Today, like when one-room schools were the norm, we serve parents by providing an appropriate education for their children. Our professional and caring staff is the heart and soul of our school, and the implemented systems ensure consistency of excellence through the many changes that happen over the course of every school year. To achieve excellence, we subscribe to the tenants of Professional Learning Communities utilizing our Beyond Textbooks partnership while using Capturing Kids’ Hearts to nourish our culture embedded with traditional values and high expectations of achievement.

Quemado has a well-established culture rooted in traditional values such as respect, the value of hard work, and personal and social responsibility. Because we value our history and the culture established throughout many generations, we implemented Capturing Kids’ Hearts (CKH) in 2015. CKH systematically teaches the traditional values that serve as the bedrock of our school culture to every student who passes through our hallways. Those values translate into behaviors critical for success in the modern collaborative work environment. At its core, CKH communicates professional behavior expectations to everyone associated with Quemado Schools.

The relatively low student numbers create advantages to improve the educational experience and outcome. We have small class sizes, personal relationships with our students, and more opportunities for individually targeted instruction. However, our small size also creates constraints due to a lack of resources.

To mitigate the constraints we face, we have established a partnership with the Vail School District, located in Vail, Arizona. Through that partnership, we gain access to their locally developed resources, collectively known as Beyond Textbooks (BT). Beyond Textbooks provides us with clearly defined learning standards, teacher-created resources, defined units of instruction with formative assessments, and ongoing professional development. Combining the resources of BT with the built-in advantages we experience because of our small size has allowed us to more fully establish and benefit from the tenants of Professional Learning Communities. We can focus on every standard and every student better than ever. With our access to resources and connections with over 8000 educational professionals in over 140 BT partner districts, we have created a continually improving educational environment benefiting our entire community.

Quemado Schools has a long history rooted in excellence stretching well over 100 years. Our community enjoys a well-established school culture built on traditional values, a consistent and continually improving learning environment, and a tradition of high expectations and excellence. We strive to build on that legacy every day. We are a proud community and proud to be Quemado Eagles!

David Lackey