Northwest Schools Meet State's Performance Standards

Northwest R-1 schools met all 14 of the accreditation standards set by the Missouri Department of Secondary Education (DESE) based on preliminary annual performance data released last week.

Northwest School District Superintendent Paul Ziegler said the entire area has shown excellence in academic achievement.

“We’re in a very strong academic beltway when you look at the map,” Ziegler said. “Between Lindbergh, Rockwood and us, we have about six Blue Ribbon schools.”

DESE designates high-achieving elementary schools as Blue Ribbon schools. Brennan Woods and Cedar Springs elementary schools in the Northwest District are Blue Ribbon schools.

The state standards measure school performance in different areas, including attendance, the number of advanced courses offered, student scores on the Annual College Test (ACT), and performance on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests.

Of the 447 K-12 districts in the state, 256 met all 14 standards while 64 met 13 standards.

Margie Vandeven, assistant commissioner in the office of quality schools at DESE, said the scores aren't based on one year of data alone, but provide a report on each district's progress.

"We believe Missouri's Annual Performance Review is a much better indicator of student performance than the national Adequate Yearly Progress," she said.

To be fully accredited by the state, a district must have met nine to 14 of the standards. To receive provisional accreditation, the district must meet six to nine standards. Districts that meet zero to five standards can receive a recommendation to the State Board of Education to be classified as unaccredited.

The vast majority of schools in the state—510 of 520—are expected to receive full accreditation after the final APR results are released.

“We’re very pleased with the efforts of our teachers and administrators,” said Paul Ziegler, superintendent for Northwest schools.

The Northwest School District was named to DESE’s “Performing with Distinction” list for the ninth consecutive year.

Northwest School District

The Northwest School District elementary students scored higher than the state average on math and communication arts for grades 3-5

However, the seventh and eighth grade MAP scores were a little lower than the state average, although the middle school scores have continuously risen since 2007 in communication arts, while math had a respectable jump this year.

“We’ve been a little disappointed that success at our elementary-school levels hasn’t translated to success at the middle-school level,” Ziegler said.

Ziegler said the district is taking steps to address that issue.

For instance, the move back to the traditional elementary and middle schools and using the traditional middle school approach for sixth, seventh and eighth graders. Previously, students attended one school for fifth and sixth grades and another for seventh and eighth grade.

“We went from four transitions to three transitions (throughout a student’s K-12 career),” Ziegler said. “The fewer transitions the better it is for students academically.”

The switch enabled the district to close one building.

“That helped us from a financial standpoint, but in reality that was driven by academic goals,” Ziegler said.

Northwest High School students who took the ACT last year improved scores on in every subject over 2010, coming up to the average score across the state at 21.6 out of a possible 36.

“We starting providing an ACT prep class for our students a couple of years ago, and that’s paying off,” Ziegler said.

Northwest High School students ACT scores

Subject

2010

2011

English

20.7

21.2

Math

20.5

21.0

Reading

21.7

22.2

Science

21.4

21.6

Composite

21.2

21.6

Northwest High school students also scored well above the state average on end-of-course exams (EOC) in algebra and English. The EOCs are a large portion of students’ final grades in those subjects. The exams replaced MAP testing in high schools because many administrators felt students didn’t try hard during the tests because the results had no affect on their grades.

“We were certainly pleased with our EOCs in Communication Arts, and we’re making progress in algebra, but we’re not where we’d like to be yet,” Ziegler said.

“We had great success out of our high school, and that’s a tribute to our teachers and administrators,” Ziegler said. “Brad Snell is in his fifth year as principal, and he’s created an environment where kids love coming to school. When they love coming to school, it’s a lot easier to teach them.”

In 2011, 30.8 percent of district graduates scored at or above the national average on the ACT. That's up slightly from 30.7 percent last year, but it shows a consistent increase since 2008. The overall graduation rate was at 85.1 percent in 2011, identical to 2010 according to preliminary results. It is lower than a recorded high in 2008, when it was 87.5 percent.

According to the results, 383 of the district's 514 graduates in 2010 entered college. Of those graduates, a total of 80.7 percent entered the military, attended college or got a job related to their career training.

For more information on each school district's scores, visit the Missouri Comprehensive Data System and click on Accountability Reports.