RISLEY SCHOOL OF EXPLORATION (4376)
925 MONUMENT AVENUE
PUEBLO, CO 81001
400
Total Students Served
Grade 6 - Grade 8
School District:
Pueblo City 60 (2690)
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School Profile
About RISLEY SCHOOL OF EXPLORATION (4376)
A MESSAGE FROM:
RISLEY SCHOOL OF EXPLORATION
2025-2026
Risley School of Exploration, formerly Risley International Academy of Innovation, is part of a proud and historic community located on the East Side of Pueblo, Colorado. In 2024-2025, Risley served 335 students, while in 2023-2024, Risley served 340 students, both down from 2022-2023 when Risley served 395 6th-8th grade students.This was slightly down from 403 students in 2021-2022, and down from 453 students in 2020-2021. The primary demographic of the school for the 2024/205 school year: 76.2…
5% are of Hispanic ethnicity; 16.72% are White; 3.52% are Black/African American; 21% are students with disabilities; 10% are English Language Learners; more than 13% of students are considered homeless, and less than 3% of students qualify for gifted services. Currently, 91.7% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch services. At the onset of the 2024-2025 school year, Risley International Academy of Innovation was identified with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the comprehensive support (CS) and improvement plan, based on student scores falling into the lowest 5% of Title I Schools. In 2024-2025, Risley recieved a plan type assignment of priority improvement; earning 39.4 points, down 2.6 points from improvement status and down .6 points from 2023-2024, when Risley received a plan type assignment of priority improvement; earning 40.0 points. This marked a slight increase from 2022-2023 year when Risley scored 38.1 points. This marks Risley?s 12th year on the accountability clock and the school continues to be under a directed action from the State Board of Education. Initially, the state ordered Risley to engage in a full management partner but that order was modified to partial management in 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The order was most recently extended in the Fall of 2023. Currently, the Relay Graduate School of Education (GSE) serves as the partial manager for Risley and has final decision-making authority in the areas of curriculum, assessment, and professional development. Risley has also partnered with the University of Virginia's Partnership for Leaders in Education program (UVA-PLE) which they finished in 2023. Risley currently partners with 2Partner Math for support, coaching, and instructional planning and a similar consultancy partnership with Attuned Education Partners for English Language Arts. Risley also continues as an Innovation School, which provides some flexibility in terms of staffing, scheduling, etc. In the Spring of 2024, Risley was also awarded a Magnet School Grant in which the 2024-2025 school year was a planning year. and programming is in place for this school year. The 2025 School Performance Framework achievement data suggests a lack of equitable rigor for ALL students in the Common Core Standards. Risley data shows that English Language Learners, Free/ Reduced Lunch Eligible, Minority students and students with disabilities are not achieving grade level standards in all content areas. Student academic growth is Approaching Expectations in ELA and Math for all subgroups of students except for multilingual learners where growth rates are approaching expectations in English Language Arts and does not meet growth expectations in Math. For the first time in many years, Risley started the school year with all teaching positions filled, even after adding three additonal positions tied to the STREAM grant. Risley started the 2024-2025 school year with only one teacher vacancy which is at the 7th grade Social Studies level. Risley's administration team of one principal and two assistant principals has shifted for the second time after four years, bringing in a new Assistant Prinicpal this year and a former Risley Assistant Principal to join the team on a 110 last year, replacing one of the Assistant Principals who left at the end of the 2023-2024 school year. Most of Risley's leadership team and Relay Coach have remained consistent. To build their leadership capacity, three members of the Risley leadership team have completed RELAY National Principal Fellowship Association training. This training focuses on developing systems for a strong school culture, observation feedback coaching, and ongoing data analysis processes focused on improving teacher practice with Data Driven instruction. All of these practices are currently in place for both Math and Humanities teams. Risley has shifted to the district's new assessments for Math and ELA from NWEA Maps testing as a diagnostic assessment to IXL for Math and STAR for reading. Risley will use curriculum-based assessments and district-created assessments to measure achievement. The Boys and Girls Club (BGC) works closely with Risley's leadership team to support students academically as well as socially and emotionally. They are in their 8th year at Risley and focus on 21st-century skills, academic support, enrichment, and family engagement. The BGC is free for Risley students to attend and offers courses immediately following the school day until 7:00 PM Monday through Thursday and from 8:30 to 5:30 on Fridays. Along with academic support and hands-on learning, students have access to meals and individualized tutoring. School staff works with BGC staff to ensure that programs align with current grade-level expectations and learning. Risley has a quality core academic curriculum for Math, ELA, Humanities, Social Studies, and Science. The following are the core academic curricula: ELA: Wit & Wisdom for 6-8th grade. This is a shift from the district-adopted curriculum and was approved through the Innovation process and with Relay's external management support. Resources were purchased for both online access and hard copy student and teacher editions and teachers and leaders attended in-person site visits and professional development to strengthen their skills. Humanities: Wit and Wisdom curriculum resources and a custom scope and sequences are being used to support a humanities approach at the 7th and 8th grade levels. Novels and lessons were chosen strategically to support the integration of both ELA and SS standards. Ongoing coaching support and professional development is provided by Attuned and Relay. Math: Newly adopted Open Up Resources curriculum: This was purchased and implemented for the 2025-2026 school year to better align with project-based learning and as a problem-based resource. This was done through Risley's Innovation status and with support from Relay as the external manager. Science: McGraw Hill- Inspire Science- District adopted Science curriculum aligned to NGSS standards with an online component for students and ongoing, hands-on, lab options. SS: A new Social Studies curriculum was purchased and rolled out two years ago. McGraw Hill Cengage textbooks were purchased for all students and professional development was provided during the initial rollout. Risley students complete a range of assessments throughout the year for various purposes. Along with the required state assessments: CMAS, ACCESS, and Colorado Alternative Assessment (COALT), students use district-created benchmark assessment, IXL Math Diagnostic, and Star Reading to determine Intervention status and progress as well as to track skills and growth. Tracking student data on assessments and daily exit tickets allows Risley to provide improvement interventions and strategies that are connected to the students? needs that address ESSA support and improvement. Curriculum based interim assessments are taken three to four times a year and scores are analyzed by grade-level teams in PLC data meetings and test examples are used to support content area classes. The purpose of this Unified Improvement Plan (UIP) is to create an alignment with the ESSA continuous improvement cycle based on student data. This UIP was written as a collaborative effort with the Risley Administrative Team, Relay, and teachers with ongoing input from the Building Leadership Team (BLT) and families. The BLT meets monthly and consists of all school leaders, content lead teachers, and instructional coaches. PLC time is used to complete grade-level data analysis of all assessments and help create academic goals for core content areas. Knowledge of the assessments, student achievement at grade levels, and the school history enables the team to create academic goals based on trend analysis. Teachers understanding of the past year?s academic targets allows them to ask and answer questions regarding goals, root causes and performance challenges. Time for feedback from all members is provided during these meetings. Parents are presented with an overview of Risley?s UIP during the annual Open House and all parent nights and can provide input at those times. Parents are also invited to be part of the School Accountability Committee, where they also review data, Risley's UIP, and 90-Day Plan, and provide feedback. Along with the internal school leadership work, Risley is supported by the district through district UIP training and input on the UIP content. The district received the EASI Grant to support schools like Risley that are identified via ESSA. Following the State Board directive, the grant provided an opportunity to bring in the external management partner to support Risley. The school is also identified as Title I and receives funding that provides additional staffing, support materials for Math, ELA, a Humanities curriculum, professional development, and stipends for additional responsibilities related to instruction. Course-Taking Requirements: To ensure the best possible education for Risley students, the leadership team (team leads, administration, and counselors) reviews all courses taken by students based on the requirements, electives, and intervention needs of each student. For the 2025-2026 school year, all students take Competitive Academics and Advisory classes in addition to the required core content classes. Students in Competitive Academics classes will be assessed multiple times throughout the year, using IXL, to determine growth and achievement.
Final 2025 Performance Rating
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