And for each student

APR a big deal for all schools in state

The Sun contacted Dr. Theresa Christian, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, for the El Dorado Springs R-II. Annually, Dr. Christian reports on the District’s Annual Performance Report (APR) to the School Board. This year in addition to reporting the District’s APR score of 90.7%, Dr. Christian also reported at the Thursday, Dec. 14, meeting on some statewide problems with this year’s APR. The Sun contacted Dr. Christian with a list of questions about APR in which she agreed with the Sun’s assessment that APR is “a complicated puppy.”

The Annual Performance Report (APR) is the annual report for a school district that determines accreditation status with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). APR originated in 1990 with MSIP1 or the Missouri School Improvement Program (1st round). State law requires that DESE determine the accreditation status of each public school district in the state. MSIP is the process that DESE uses for this purpose. The APR is comprised of five standards (Academic Achievement, Subgroup Achievement, College & Career Readiness, Attendance, and Graduation Rate) that each public school must meet in order to be accredited as a school district.

Editor’s note: The Sun asked Dr. Christian why APR should matter to John Q. Public. She replied, “This matters because graduating from an accredited high school is essential for all students. The other reason is that the Outstanding Schools Act includes a clause that allows students to transfer to neighboring districts when the school he or she is attending is unaccredited. The transfer law is costly in terms of money and resources for all districts involved. Recent unaccredited schools are Riverview Gardens and Normandy. Both schools are now provisionally accredited, but are still dealing with student transfer issues. You can search for articles about both schools and the issues surrounding accreditation. This issue has been at the forefront of state politics for about 5 years.”

Each area of the APR is measured (scored) in a specific way:

· Academic Achievement and Subgroup Achievement scores are determined by District Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores

· College and Career Readiness are measured with a combination of:

Test scores (ACT, SAT, ACT WorkKeys, ASVAB)

Technical Skills Attainment (TSA) scores

Dual Credit or Dual Enrollment Courses – students must earn an A or B for the District to receive credit

Graduate Follow-Up Surveys – all graduating seniors are sent a survey 180 days after graduation to learn what they are currently doing

· Attendance score is based upon the number of students who are present in school at least 90% of the time. The goal for each school is to have 90% of their enrolled students at school 90% of the time

· Graduation rate is simply the percentage of students from a class who graduate within a given timeframe.

The APR is a District-wide score for accreditation. To be accredited in Missouri, a District must earn at least 98 points (70%) of the 140 points possible in the APR calculation. Any score at 70% or above on an APR means that a District is accredited for the school year. Likewise any score below 70% means a District is either provisionally accredited or unaccredited. A student who graduates from an unaccredited school is at risk of not being accepted into colleges, universities, the military or some vocational training programs. Accreditation is very important for our students and community.

While the APR affects accreditation, the District keeps teaching and learning at the forefront of all we do. What teachers do in the classroom and how students show that they have learned is integral to our success. The APR as a whole should be a reflection of that. For example, when our Academic Achievement and Subgroup Achievement scores improve, that shows that our students improved individually and as a whole. When our College and Career Readiness score improves, that means that more students improved their scores on a specific test, earned an A or B in a Dual Credit or Dual Enrollment course or a former student was at a post-secondary school, military or workplace. Attendance and Graduation Rate are three year rolling average calculations and we earn additional when those scores improve annually.

In addition to report on the District’s APR, Dr. Christian also discussed the absence this year of Algebra I and English II End of Course Exam scores from the calculation of the District’s APR. This issue has many implications for both the state and local school districts.

In the Spring of 2017, the Algebra I and English II EOC Scale Scores were calculated incorrectly. Questar administers the High School End of Course (EOC) Exams for the Missouri Assessment Program. Because of how the scores were calculated, the vendor was not able to insure that the scores were accurate and could be used in the APR calculation for accreditation for each school district.

Questar is responsible for this issue and has reached an agreement with DESE that hopefully resolves the issue of scoring for 2018. Questar has agreed to implement some additional procedures to insure that scores and information provided to Districts is statistically reliable and valid. Additionally, Districts will not be charged for an equal number of Algebra I and English II EOC Exams that were administered in 2017. Districts will only pay for tests that exceed the number of students tested in 2017. For El Dorado Springs, this is about $280.

In light of these challenges in 2017, the District is continuing to move forward. Here in ElDo, our focus has been on continuously improving each year. The District has taken the approach that we can only control what happens here. We work to help teachers be better teachers, provide more opportunities for students and find new ways to help students achieve academic success. At the state level, we need to be vigilant and know what is happening. I believe one of the reasons that our APR continues to be strong in these challenging times is that we stay informed and continue to put student’s needs first. By focusing on our classrooms (students and teachers), we are working to insure that all students are learning and growing each year.

At the end of the phone conversation, Dr. Christian stated, “Needless to say, APR and accreditation are complicated. Because of the complicated nature of this issue, deciding what to report and how to report the information was very difficult. Thankfully we have a very smart board who ask good questions and I try to keep them as informed as possible each month. I didn’t want to over complicate the explanation and make the report too long but at the same time I wanted the Board to understand the difficulties the state faced and districts faced.”

And now, you, the public has the information.