Superintendent's Message

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

(575)773-4700

dlackey@quemadoschools.org