Despite the challenges it faces as a small rural district with high poverty levels and a large number of English Language Learners, Colcord School District brought up its overall letter grade from the state to a B, according to Superintendent Bud Simmons.
Just five years ago the Colcord School District was deemed a failing school and received a letter grade of F, Simmons said. Since then, the district has been hard at work to better serve students and is tackling the ambitious goal of earning As in the next five years, he said.
During the 2018/2019 year, the district's elementary school, which represents grades kindergarten through eight, received a letter grade of B, and the high school, which represents grades nine through 12, received a D, according to the state's school report card, released in December. The previous year, the elementary school receive a C, the high school did not receive an overall letter grade but was given an F for two performance indicators and a B for another. An overall letter grade for the district is not listed on the Oklahoma Department of Education website.
Oklahoma recently changed its testing and school performance assessment formula, Simmons said. The first letter grades based on the new system were released for the 2017/2018 school year, according to the state website.
School performance is currently measured across multiple indicators, including academic achievement, academic growth, chronic absenteeism, progress in English language proficiency assessments, post-secondary opportunities and graduation, according to the website. Each indicator receives a specific point value that translates to a letter grade, it states.
Research shows that economic disadvantage is the largest indicator of poor academic achievement, according to Simmons. Colcord's poverty rate was as high as 90 percent in recent years but is currently down to 75 percent.
"We should now be on track to be an A-rated school," Simmons said. "I attribute that to leadership and staff and students motivating other students to work hard."
From the 2017-2018 school year to the 2018/2019 school year, the elementary school kept academic achievement steady at a C, and has seen improvement from a C to a B in academic growth, a B to an A in English language proficiency, and a C to an A in chronic absenteeism, according to state records.
Simmons said the elementary school has gone from one of the lowest scoring in the county to one of the highest in a few years. It was hard on the dedicated staff to receive a failing grade and it was exciting for them to see their hard work pay off and turn the grade around, he said.
He credits the academic improvement at the elementary school to providing highly qualified teachers, meaningful instruction, horizontal and vertical alignment in the curriculum, raising teaching standards and motivating students.
The school district is not happy with an overall letter grade of a D at the high school, but is putting things in place to improve in the future. The high school has already seen improvement in some individual achievement indicators, bringing its grade up from a F to a B in chronic absenteeism, while seeing a decline in academic achievement from a B to a D, according to state records.
At the high school level, academic achievement for the whole school is measured by the ACT test, given just one time during the junior year, Simmons said. English language proficiency was not given a letter grade because the group of students was so small that it could have identified individuals, he explained.
Simmons attributes the improvement in chronic absenteeism at both schools to the school resource officer, who has done home visits and phone calls for students at risk for truancy.
"Our mission is to be the very best we possibly can," Simmons said. "Our goal is to be an A on both sides. We've set a five-year plan to do that, this is year two. We hope to show more improvements next year. We hope to be an A at the elementary school next year and to improve a letter grade or two at the high school by involving everyone, students and staff. ... What is important at the end of the day is we are serving students the best we can."
General News on 01/29/2020