The Jefferson City Public School Board spent a lot of time outlining the annual performance report for board members and outlined a general plan for how the district will work to improve at Monday's board meeting.
A couple of the board members also recapped their building visits, which took place in October.
Dawn Berhorst walked board members through the complex APR, including how the district could have achieved a higher score if circumstances were different. The district scored 70.7 percent on the APR, about 7 percent lower than the previous year.
The APR is broken down by five categories including academic achievement and sub-group achievement, which is calculated based on student scores on the Missouri Assessment Program.
JCPS didn't earn any points of the eight points in the social studies portion of academic achievement.
One change that the district made to better their scores was begin administering the test to 12th-grade students, instead of ninth-grade students.
But it may have hindered the district's social studies score in the short term.
Because of that change, only 40 students took the social studies portion in the 2014-15 school year as opposed to 666 students in the previous year.
Of those 40 who still needed to take the test, 10 didn't take that portion at all, Berhorst said.
Those 10 didn't take the test for various reason, she said, including a couple being incarcerated at the time they would have taken the test.
Under calculations by Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the school received zero points because there were too many "level not determined" scores, she said.
Berhorst said, if that hadn't occurred, the district would have received the full eight points which would have boosted the district total APR to about 76 percent.
JCPS tries to identify which students haven't taken the tests during their senior year, but those 10 students had already graduated by the time they were identified.
Moving forward, students will not graduate high school unless they've taken portions of the MAP test, she said.
Superintendent Larry Linthacum moved into the district plan to have higher student achievement.
The plan is broken down by academic achievement, science, college and career readiness, attendance, and graduation.
The district's partnership with the International Center for Leadership in Education will aid the district in higher achievement.
This week ICLE representatives are surveying classrooms, taking a look at curriculum, assessment and instruction with a focus on math and English Language arts.
For the science portion of the plan, Linthacum said the district plans to create benchmark assessments and plans to create a scoreboard to monitor student learning.
The college and career readiness of the plan will measure progress for tests including ACT, ASVAB, COMPASS and AP. Principals and counselors will also work on a game plan to improve post-secondary placement.
In terms of attendance and graduation district faculty and staff will work with principals to measure progress.
In a different portion of the meeting, board members Pam Murray and Michael Couty recounted their facility visits.
Board members went to 18 buildings in October and several voiced how they'd like to continue building visits.
Murray wrote a report, which she read at the board meeting on Monday.
While visiting some of the schools she saw an obvious space need, especially for schools that have a high percentage of students who require extra attention due to learning or physical disabilities.
Those schools need the extra space so they can have smaller class sizes and room for one-on-one attention.
"We need to foster an atmosphere that encourages the free flow of ideas, treating each other with respect," Murray read aloud from her report.
"We know our roles, and working within those roles we can continue to build the team by listening to our students, staff, parents and community members. We can create a culture of optimism and openness by making visits a routine."
Couty echoed her sentiment with brief comments about how he would like to continue doing site visits.
"I attended every facility visit; it was a tight process," Couty said. "I recommend we maintain that so we have contact with schools and they have contact with us."