2001 Annual Report

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School Accreditation
1999-2000

Accreditation levels assigned to school districts are Accredited-5-Excellent, Accredited-4-Advanced, Accredited-3-Successful, Accredited-2-Warned, and Accredited-1-Probation. The Accredited-5 level indicates that the district has met 100% of Level 5 performance standards and all applicable process standards; Accredited-4, 85% to 99% of the Level 5 performance standards and all applicable process standards; Accredited-3, 90% to 100% of the Level 3 performance standards and all applicable process standards; Accredited-2, 70% to 89% of the Level 3 performance standards and all process standards; Accredited-1, less than 70% of the performance standards and less than 100% of the process standards.

The accreditation model is currently under significant revision and accreditation levels and performance indices assigned in 1997-98 will remain until such time the new model is implemented

In March of 1999 the Commission on School Accreditation assigned accreditation levels to 147 school districts and three agricultural high schools. Numbers in each category of accreditation level follow:
 

In addition, there are two districts that continue to have their accreditation withdrawn, resulting in a designation of  Accreditation-Withdrawn for each of those districts.

As already indicated, accreditation levels are determined by meeting performance standards and process standards. Process standards measure components of each district's professional personnel, organizational makeup, instructional program, and school climate, while performance standards refer mainly to each district's performance on standardized tests.

The performance standards are implemented in two phases: Phase 1, in which Level 3 performance standards are applied to each district, and Phase 2, in which districts meeting Level 3 accreditation have Level 5 performance standards applied to them. Each district's performance on the Phase 1 and Phase 2 criteria determines the performance level that is assigned. Also, each district is assigned a performance index, a rating that allows performance comparisons between districts within accreditation levels and that allows comparisons of year-to-year performance within a single district, although the district's accreditation level remains the same.

Table 1 details the 37 Level 3 performance standards of 1997-98; Table 2, the 38 Level 5 performance standards of 1997-98; and Table 3, the 1997-98 performance index.