LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

K.C. Longoria was nominated by his colleague, Colton Sweesy.

Exuberance, connection, and, to the untrained eye, chaos are the sights seen upon gazing into Mr. Longoria’s classroom in the halls of Elevate Academy located in Caldwell, Idaho.  Mr. Longoria skillfully moves between pods of students located in every nook and cranny of the classroom as well as the hallway directly outside of his room.  Students are loud, but engaged and collaborating with each other and Mr. Longoria.  At any given time, Mr. Longoria may have six separate groups of students working on completely different assignments designed to target their specific needs.

Mr. Longoria uses the STAR reading test as his primary tool of formative assessment.  At the conclusion of every block, Mr. Longoria administers the STAR test and uses the results as feedback of teaching effectiveness, growth, and areas of need for all of his students.  The STAR test gives students a scaled score that is standardized relative to their same-age peers.  In addition, the STAR test provides feedback as to which standards students need the most help in, regardless of their grade level.

Mr. Longoria has always tailored learning to his students' needs, but recently, he has decided to change how he approaches doing so.  Mr. Longoria decided to use feedback from the STAR reading test to completely guide what material he would administer to his students. He grouped students based on the skills they needed most, let them choose which standards they wanted to study within those skills, and created a curriculum that addressed these much-needed skills for each group of students.  The result was a schooling experience that was not only completely needs-based for each student, but met them where they were at.

In a year where learning loss was so prevalent due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the results were undeniable.  STAR uses the term “benchmark” to describe students who are at or above current grade level using their scaled score.  The sixth grade benchmark for the STAR Reading test is 1070, and the 10th grade benchmark is 1140.  This means that students are expected to grow 70 points between the end of their 6th grade year and the end of their 10th grade year to remain at benchmark.  In a single year, Mr. Longoria’s 8th grade students grew an average of 155 points.  Half of this observed growth took place during the 5 week term Mr. Longoria used the STAR standards as the driving force of what was taught in his classroom.

During a year where every opportunity was available to excuse away poor student/teacher performance, Mr. Longoria found an innovative way to accelerate his student’s growth.  This implemented method is anything but conventional and/or convenient.  It was time-consuming, tedious, and demanding.  If you asked him why he was willing to put in so much thought and effort into this new strategy, he would simply respond that he did it because it’s what’s best for kids.  Beyond this impressive growth and his hard work, Mr. Longoria is an amazingly empathetic teacher who creates the warmest of environments in his classroom.

"I’m grateful to call K.C. my friend and colleague," said Sweesy. "Mr. Longoria is the epitome of thoughtfulness and innovation.  I cannot imagine a more deserving educator for LifeChanger of the Year."