For years, Missouri education regulators concluded the Hickman Mills School District fell short in key ways. It was only partially accredited.
Now, the latest state performance reports show the small Kansas City district scoring above the threshold for full accreditation.
But there’s also bad news.
Contrary to its original plan, Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is combining this year’s scores with past years’ to evaluate districts. The department says it needs more years of data before it can recommend that districts’ classifications change.
Districts that scored low enough to lose full accreditation — dozens of them, including Center and Grandview in the Kansas City area — have more time to raise their scores.
Districts that scored high enough to regain accreditation under the earlier plan — like Hickman Mills — are left hanging.
During a press conference Nov. 21, DESE officials said next year is the earliest it will recommend that the Missouri State Board of Education raise any districts’ classifications. In 2026, it will also start recommending the board lower districts’ classifications based on their scores.
Hickman Mills Superintendent Yaw Obeng said he’s frustrated with moving goalposts as his district fights for full accreditation, but he’s still proud of the district.
Staff and students “deserve a pat on the back,” he said. “We haven’t hit this number in, like, over a decade. So that’s an accomplishment. No one can take that away from us.”
How performance scores and accreditation work
Each year, DESE scores school districts and charter schools on factors like test scores, graduation rates and attendance.
It then assigns each district a single score representing the percentage of potential points it received. That’s its Annual Performance Report, or APR, score.
The state board classifies school districts — but not charter schools — as unaccredited, partially accredited, accredited or accredited with distinction.
Accreditation doesn’t directly affect day-to-day life for students, teachers and families.
But Obeng said there’s a stigma on partially accredited districts that can discourage students, cause people to avoid moving into the area and increase rates of families leaving.
“We had, two years ago, the highest mobility rate in the state. Higher than Kansas City. Higher than St. Louis,” he said. “And when you have that transience, it’s hard to have achievement.”
That’s because changing schools more frequently hurts students’ education, he said, and they may not be headed to a better school.
The education the district provides, Obeng said, is “the same, if not better, in many cases.”
Accreditation decisions
The ultimate decision on accreditation is up to the state board. Districts can lose accreditation for reasons like financial woes, having an uncertified superintendent or failing to follow the law.
But APR scores are a major factor most years.
DESE typically recommends districts earn at least 50% of the points for partial accreditation, at least 70% for full accreditation and at least 95% for accredited with distinction.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a new scoring system, it’s been about half a decade since DESE made those APR-based recommendations. (Kansas City Public Schools and another district were able to regain full accreditation through an alternative pathway in 2022.)
That was supposed to change in 2024. But earlier this year, DESE instead adopted a more complex calculation that requires at least two composite scores made up of three years of data each. It can’t legally include 2022 data in a decision to lower a district’s classification.
The result is that districts’ statuses can’t go up because of APR scores until next year, and won’t risk going down because of APR scores until 2026.
Using composite scores will help keep districts’ scores more stable so they don’t “bounce in and out of a category,” said Lisa Sireno, DESE’s assistant commissioner, Office of Quality Schools.
Obeng sees the delay as an attempt to give other districts more time to raise their scores.
Previous scoring systems put fewer districts below the accredited category. Only half a dozen are provisionally accredited today.
But had DESE gone with its original plan to make recommendations based on the 2024 scores alone, close to 60 would have lost full accreditation.
“It helps everybody stay where they are,” Obeng said, “but it doesn’t help us.”
A history of Hickman Mills’ accreditation
Hickman Mills lost full accreditation in 2012.
Over the past several years, it’s renewed efforts to get it back, complicated by the interruptions of the pandemic and the new scoring system.
The latest plan was to focus on scoring high enough to regain accreditation through the normal process by 2024. So the news that option would also be delayed was a disappointment.
In an open letter, Hickman Mills called for the state board to pick a system and accredit the district during its Dec. 3 meeting.
The district has also asked DESE to correct two numbers it thinks are wrongly lowering its score.
Obeng said the district’s 2023 graduation rate changed to a lower number after DESE initially posted correct information, then revised it without explanation. He also thinks DESE incorrectly totaled points for part of the district’s score.
Hickman Mills scored 72.7% this year, but its composite score covering three years is 68.3%.
During the press conference, Sireno said there’s currently no alternate pathway for districts to regain accreditation before 2025 scores are available.
The state board will vote to classify schools during its January meeting but will focus on other factors.
Statewide and Kansas City trends
Overall, scores are moving up, DESE said. About 86% of districts and charter schools are meeting expectations, and 60% of them saw scores improve this year.
About 250 districts and charters expanded career and technical education, statewide attendance improved and the graduation rate surpassed 90%.
Some local districts are among those celebrating.
The day after Kansas City Public Schools’ board voted to put a bond on the April ballot, Superintendent Jennifer Collier said she’s “very pleased” with the results, particularly improvements in reading scores.
KCPS’ overall score was 73.2%, and its three-year composite score is in the accredited range.
“It’s really important after just recently coming over that unaccredited hump,” Collier said. “I think this is our highest APR that we’ve had the last three, four years.”
Raytown, which fell below the accredited score cutoff when the new system first rolled out, landed above 70% this year. The superintendent was not available to comment.
Meanwhile, the Independence School District’s score hit 80%, growing from the low 70s in 2022.
“We’ve now gone up three years in a row,” Superintendent Dale Herl said.
Elsewhere in the metro:
- North Kansas City Schools scored close to 80%.
- Liberty, Park Hill, Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit all scored in the mid- to high 80s.
- Grandview and Center scored in the mid-60s and will have to improve their scores in the next two years to avoid losing accreditation.
The state doesn’t accredit charter schools but does score them. More than half a dozen Kansas City charter schools scored below 70%, some below 50%.
But Kansas City is also home to French immersion charter school Academie Lafayette, which scored the second highest in the state at 99.7%.
