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Sep 05, 2023

BVSD, SVVSD schools earn high ratings in state accountability system

Every school in Boulder Valley and all but one in St. Vrain Valley earned the top two state performance ratings, based on preliminary accountability ratings released this week by the Colorado

Every school in Boulder Valley and all but one in St. Vrain Valley earned the top two state performance ratings, based on preliminary accountability ratings released this week by the Colorado Department of Education.

Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley both maintained the state’s second highest rating of accredited for a second year, the same rating both districts received in 2019, which was the last year the state assigned ratings to schools prior to the pandemic.

The ratings are based mainly on achievement on statewide tests and growth from year to year on language arts and math tests. At high schools, ratings also include graduation and dropout rates and college entrance exam scores.

The school ratings are, from lowest to highest: turnaround, priority improvement, improvement and performance. Schools in the lowest two categories face state intervention if they don’t improve after five consecutive years. During the pandemic, most schools kept their 2019 ratings and the five-year “accountability clock” was paused. It started again with this year’s ratings.

In Boulder Valley, Lafayette’s Alicia Sanchez Elementary had been the only district school on the accountability clock after receiving a turnaround rating in 2018. After earning the state’s highest rating for the second year in a row, Sanchez is no longer on the state’s watch list.

“It’s a huge celebration,” Boulder Valley Superintendent Rob Anderson said. “We’re just incredibly proud of the teachers and leaders at Alicia Sanchez. I’m most proud of the sustained improvement. It hasn’t been just one year. A lot of hard work goes into that.”

Altogether, 45 Boulder Valley schools earned performance ratings, while three schools — Angevine Middle in Lafayette, Casey Middle in Boulder and Boulder High — earned the second highest rating of improvement. Boulder High’s rating was lowered to improvement because of a low participation rate.

Two schools, Broomfield Heights and Casey Middle, improved their ratings.

“We continue to be very focused on all students through the work in our strategic plan,” Anderson said. “We’re really proud of the growth we are seeing in our high support schools. They’re just continuing to get better.”

Three Boulder Valley schools didn’t have enough test data for the state to assign ratings: Gold Hill Elementary, Jamestown Elementary and Boulder Universal, an online school. The rating for Boulder’s New Vista High School also is pending.

In St. Vrain Valley, Longmont’s Longs Peak Middle School improved its rating from the lowest to the second highest. Because the state considered last year a transition year, schools like Longs Peak that dropped and then improved their rating this year avoided being placed on the accountability clock.

St. Vrain Deputy Superintendent Jackie Kapushion said the district’s overall percentage of points awarded continued an upward trajectory this year. The percentage of schools in the top rating category also grew from 70% last year to 83% this year, with a total of 41 schools receiving the performance rating.

“That was notable,” she said. “That’s something we’re very proud of.”

Along with Longs Peak, Alpine Elementary, Mountain View Elementary, Northridge Elementary and Thunder Valley K-8 all went from improvement to performance.

Timberline PK-8’s rating, however, dropped to priority improvement from improvement. The Longmont school is now in its third year on the accountability clock after receiving low ratings for multiple years.

Kapushion said the district’s recipe for school improvement includes using data to target instruction, providing after school tutoring and a summer program, professional development so teachers can consistently implement curriculum, coaching for newer staff members, and sharing information on extension opportunities with families.

“There’s always extra support for any school engaging in that continuous improvement cycle,” she said.

Two St. Vrain schools — St. Vrain Community Montessori, a K-8 charter school in Longmont, and LaunchED, an online school — didn’t have enough test data for the state to assign ratings.

The ratings are preliminary, and districts can contest the ratings before they’re finalized later this year. Ratings for alternative education campuses, which include three schools in Boulder Valley and two in St. Vrain Valley, also will be released later in September.

Changes could be on the horizon for the state’s accountability system, which has been criticized by local education leaders. A new state law created a 26-person task force to study “academic opportunities, inequities, promising practices in schools and improvements to the accountability and accreditation system.”

Both Anderson and St. Vrain Valley Superintendent Don Haddad are serving on the task force, which held its initial meeting last week.

Concerns that Haddad and others have raised include that the system is really measuring poverty, not school quality, and is placing schools and districts with high poverty rates at a disadvantage. Achievement data also is less accurate for small schools and districts, with about 85% of the state’s districts falling into that category.

How the data is reported is another concern. While the tests are given with about two months still left in the school year, the scores are reported to the public as end-of-the-year math and reading levels.

“The current version of the accountability system is fairly narrow in its view of school performance and success,” Kapushion said. “Our interest is redesigning that definition of school and student success beyond a single test score.”

Anderson said the state’s system can mask disparities in achievement among student groups, such as students in poverty and students of color. Boulder Valley created its own public dashboard that looks at a wide range of measures, from who is taking advanced classes to data on student discipline.

“It holds our district to a higher standard than even these performance ratings,” Anderson said.

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