T Or C Elementary School

1500 NORTH SILVER

School District

T Or C Municipal Schools
Grade

PK, K-3
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:16
Type

public

GreatSchools Rating

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Reviews

Submitted by teacher on April 02, 2014

T or C Elementary is improving in the reading instruction. Instead of the "dumbing down" that had occurred in previous years with the advocacy of "Balanced Literacy" our school is realizing the importance of phonics and phoneme awareness at the foundational levels of reading acquisition. As the Reading Coach we have brought in supplemental decodable books and working on getting more volunteers to LISTEN to the students who need intensive support. Direct Instruction includes hand signals for short vowels, marking and learning all the vowel sounds and teaching children to look for syllabication and phoneme patterns! We also use Reading Street now which is an excellent comprehensive program which uses technology/learning videos. Our principal is very supportive of changing from a philosophy that taught students to guess at unfamiliar words to our new motto: "We TEACH Reading NOT Guessing!" We are making great strides towards being a GREAT school. We would be most grateful for help as our school is not only very rural in a low-socio economic area but there is a disproportionate amount of drug and alcohol abuse in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Thank you!
Submitted by teacher on August 01, 2013

T or C Elementary School needs additional funding as this school has more than 85% who qualify for free lunch due to the extreme poverty in this area. The children often come from homes where drugs and alcohol are a problem as T or C (Truth or Consequences, NM) has a national standing of the worst drug problems in the nation. The students come to school, as typical with a low socioeconomic area, lacking in readiness skills, unable to pay attention, very needy for attention, and very poor listening skills. The behaviors adversely affect our academic program which teachers and administrators are working diligently to improve and upgrade. Our technology is subpar and we could use the money to buy computers as we don't have enough that work to allow a classroom to successfully utilize the computer lab. The teachers love these kids in spite of the many behavioral challenges we face. For example, in one classroom exactly half the students had a parent in prison and/or were living in a foster situation. The students pay attention the very best using technology which is in desperate need of upgrade. Please help our school - all of our students have so much potential and technology helps!
Submitted by parent on September 15, 2009

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