With APR, every school faces challenges

For larger districts, improving performance scores can be difficult

Second graders in Tracey Bieri's Russellville Elementary School class benefit from STEM-related activities, like Emma Gardner who is building a LEGO robot.
Second graders in Tracey Bieri's Russellville Elementary School class benefit from STEM-related activities, like Emma Gardner who is building a LEGO robot.

Making consistent improvements in all areas of public school districts is difficult, but it's what the Annual Performance Report demands in order for efforts to pay off with a higher score.

The APR is a measure created by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to measure how well districts are performing. They are assigned accreditation scores based on points earned in five categories - academic achievement, subgroup achievement, college and career readiness, attendance and graduation rates.

Each district has its challenges.

One thing that poses a challenge for large districts, like Jefferson City Public Schools, is it takes more to get everyone moving in the same direction, and having higher populations of students in poverty adds another layer of difficulty, Superintendent Larry Linthacum said.

As a whole, 58.5 percent of JCPS's students are on free and reduced lunches while the state level is 51.7 percent. Those students typically have a harder time in school and need more resources to be successful. Several of their challenges stem from poverty, from attendance to academics to graduation rates, he said.

"The increase of poverty level is probably the biggest opportunity," Linthacum said. "There are more individualized needs. Where the rubber meets the road for our school district is our classroom teachers, and when more than half of the students in the class may be in poverty, it makes it that much more challenging to a classroom teacher."

"Those are opportunities," he said. "It's never an excuse. We're not saying we have higher poverty so our score will be lower, it just presents those challenges."

Blair Oaks Public Schools is on the opposite end of the spectrum. The district has roughly 8,000 fewer students than Jefferson City and a 13.3 percent free and reduced lunch rate. The district's APR rate was nearly 100 percent this year, and principals have expressed making the same level of improvements next year may be difficult.

While Jefferson City and Blair Oaks saw higher performance on the APR, area districts in California and Fulton declined.

 

Jefferson City Public Schools

The district received a roughly 6 percentage point increase on its APR after being on the cusp of earning a provisional accreditation score.

"To see a six-point increase feels good, but we're not at all satisfied with it," Linthacum said. "We're headed in the right direction, but we're not at all satisfied. We just have to keep chipping away every day in everything we do."

One of the largest gains was in academic achievement with an eight-point jump in points over last year.

In the last year, Linthacum rerouted the focus on student learning. Instead of pouring funds into building renovations, the district opted to spend the money on a partnership to improve the curriculum.

Supporting data from the APR revealed a higher percentage of students were proficient and advanced in English language arts and math. Scores in science and social studies lagged behind with dips in the proficiency scores.

Subgroup achievement - students who participate in the free and reduced price lunch, have a racial or ethnic background, are English language learners and students with disabilities - went down 1.5 points this year, but it also saw gains in spring test scores for English and math.

The test score trends for both groups are near mirror images.

Linthacum said it's too early in the partnership to tell how much of a difference it made on the test scores, but just having a clear plan for the district, addressing behavior and workplace culture makes an impact.

While the academic scores reflect much lower achievement than what the district had hoped, it's progress in the right direction, he said.

JCPS also had 2.5-point gains in college and career readiness. This year, 54.2 percent were at or above the state standard for the Advanced Placement test, and 532 of the 612 graduates went on to college, the military or a competitive career within 180 days of graduating high school.

The district's attendance score was consistent with last year's APR at 7.5 points, but the actual attendance has improved. This year, 86.9 percent of students attended 90 percent of the time. DESE's expectation is 90 percent of students attend 90 percent of the time. Last year, the district had 85.5 percent attendance on the APR.

Steady growth has occurred in the district's graduation rate as well; the numbers were better this year than in years past, even though the APR score dipped 2.5 points in this area.

So overall, the district has moved the needle in most areas of its performance, but it didn't make enough progress to earn points for it. Districts earn points based on the raw data and on how well they're progressing.

"It's just one form of an assessment for how well you're doing as a district," Linthacum previously told the News Tribune. "It's not the only measure of how well you're doing. As we continue to evolve and work on our three priorities, we feel like the APR will continue to improve as well."

 

Blair Oaks

The district's biggest gains on the APR were in academic achievement; the district had the same score in the other four areas.

More students were proficient and advanced in English language arts, math, science and social studies in academic achievement. Students in subgroup achievement had gains in math but dipped in English language arts and science. Social studies did not display a score.

In college and career readiness, 71.1 percent of the district's student scored at or above the state average on the Advanced Placement test - about 2 percentage points higher than last year. This year, 95 percent of the district's 100 graduates went on to college, the military or the competitive workforce.

The attendance rate showed 98.8 percent of students attend 90 percent of the time, a source of pride for Superintendent Jim Jones. The four-year graduation rate was 95.7 percent in 2016, just slightly lower than the year before.

"We're extremely pleased with the results shown on the APR report," Jones previously told the News Tribune. "I'm so proud of our students, parents, faculty, staff and building administrators. One thing that group does is always commit to setting the bar high. The thing that makes me the proudest is they do the work to reach it, and those results show the commitment by all those folks."

Officials have expressed that once numbers get into the mid- to high-90s, it's difficult to continue making significant increases year to year, but Jones said there's never a finish line in education.

"We weren't displeased with 93.2 percent or 96.4 percent," Jones said. "We want to do the best we can. When these kids go to get a job or college, we want to make our students the best they can be. The teachers are focused on making themselves the best they can. It's a pretty awesome educational machine."

 

California

Overall, the district received a 92 percent, down from a 96 percent in 2015.

However, in several categories, the district was within a couple of points of reaching the next level, said Superintendent Dwight Sanders. If those had been a bit higher, the overall score would have been a 95 percent, he estimated.

"It's frustrating; we were so close," he said.

Now, the school will focus its attention more closely on science and social studies in the same way, he said.

In the academic achievement categories, the school scored 100 percent in English and math. But its scores were 12 out of 16 in science and 5 out of 16 in social studies.

"We can work on more time in those content areas," Sanders said.

But he is pleased with the college and career readiness improvements over the last several years, including the ACT average among all juniors rose from 19.7 to 20.1.

The school also identified students with poor attendance and made personal contact and home visits to increase attendance. Other incentive programs implemented at the high school have shown improved success, too, he said.

The standardized measure of the APR helped the school to look closely at each individual student, versus meeting an overall percent, Sanders said.

"In the long run, that benefits the students," he said.

 

Fulton

Fulton earned an overall 86.6 percent on the APR, but saw a decrease of almost 6 percentage points compared to last year's results.

The biggest drop was in academic achievement. In 2016, the district earned 44 of the 56 points, about six points lower than the previous year. A big portion of those declines were in science and social studies - a common trend across the state.

"I think that the science across the board was a struggle for elementary and middle school," Superintendent Jacque Cowherd said. "At high school, science did significantly better."

College and career readiness improved by 2.5 points, mainly in post-secondary placement. Cowherd attributes some of that to the job market improving and diligently tracking students after they've graduated.

The score for graduation rates was stable, maintaining full points this year just like last year.

As for attendance rates, the district had a 2-point decline.

"We noticed last year that some of the incentives, like off-campus lunch periods, weren't working anymore," Cowherd said. "So we ended those, and we're trying more in-school incentives."

Reporter Helen Wilbers contributed to this story.

Related:

Browse statewide APR results in our searchable database

Area schools share strategies for improving next APR scores

What is the Annual Performance Report?