McCurdy Charter School

McCurdy Charter School is a K–12 charter school of about 557 students in Española, in northern New Mexico's Rio Grande valley, serving a largely low-income population (68.5% free or reduced-price lunch in 2022-23 and 64.7% in 2023-24). It is also its own standalone charter district, the McCurdy Charter School district, and no other schools were available for comparison within 20 miles — so every comparison below is against New Mexico state averages rather than nearby schools.

McCurdy's clearest strength is getting students to graduation. Its graduation rate was 86.6% in 2024-25, about 6 points above the state's 80.6% and up more than 12 points since 2020-21, when the school trailed the state. Reading has also crossed above the state line: all-grades English language arts reached 46.27 against a state figure of 44.66 in 2025-26, up about 16 points in three years. Math still trails but is closing quickly, at 24.71 versus the state's 27.85, up from 7% in 2022-23 when the gap was 17 points. Class sizes have improved too, with the student-teacher ratio falling from 16.8 to 13.6 over two years.

Science is the exception to the improvement story: results have been flat for three years and run 6–8 points below the state. The sharpest weakness is 8th grade science, at 17.39% proficient against a 34.33% state rate — roughly half the state level — even though 11th grade science is at state parity. Two cautions on the numbers: 8th and 11th grade math are reported only as "under 20%," so they cannot be read as exact figures, and 10th grade results were suppressed by the state. Grade levels hold only about 40 students each, so single-grade swings may be noise; the schoolwide trends are the more reliable signal.