Hickman Mills School District unhappy with state’s re-accreditation delay 

By Kathy Feist

The Hickman Mills School District School Board met in a special emergency session on Sunday, April 14th to discuss proposed changes to Missouri School Improvement Program 6 (MSIP 6) put forth by the State Board of Education. After a meeting with the Commissioner of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), Margie Vandeven, the Board was told there would be an additional three year wait for an accreditation review.  The school district was classified as provisional accredited in 2014 due to low student academic scores. 

MSIP 6 was updated in 2022 as a result of the pandemic. At the time, all Missouri Districts were to be reclassified in 2024 based upon APR scores. With the new changes announced recently to the MSIP 6, Superintendent Yaw Obeng issued a statement regarding two proposed changes he opposes: 

“1.  Recommended New Composite Score Assignment: MSIP 6 in the past several years required actions to lead all Missouri Districts to be reclassified in 2024. The recommendation for a new composite score of three years of data would mean that districts must wait until 2025-2026 to be reclassified.  Holding harmless underperforming districts that are already classified as accredited, but having no provision for districts like HMC-1 that have demonstrated continuous improvement with no pathway to receive full accreditation as articulated in the original MSIP 6 plan. Superintendent Obeng asserts that this change may not adequately reflect the district’s performance and could unfairly impact its accreditation status.

2. Changes in Graduate Cohort Data: The proposed change suggests a shift from utilizing the current year’s graduates to the previous year’s cohort in success-ready measures. Superintendent Obeng believes this adjustment could inaccurately represent the district’s progress and impede its ability to track student success effectively. The State should use current data, not retroactive data that may represent students no longer in the district. Who is being served in this scenario?”

In addition to opposing these changes, Superintendent Obeng urged the Missouri State Board of Education to consider an alternative approach to accreditation. He advocated for adopting the Alternative Accreditation Framework for Provisionally Accredited Schools, similar to the one used to grant full Kansas City Public Schools accreditation in 2022.

Reason for delay

Most likely the reason the Department of Education has chosen to delay reclassifications this year is that thanks to the new scoring method, 99 Missouri school districts are in jeopardy of losing their accreditation category. 

In 2018 under MSIP5, there were 371 school districts and charter schools that scored at least 90%. In December 2023, just 26 districts and charters met that target.

Since 2022 MSIP 6 has phased in a different point system. This past year, the program included “growth scores.”  Schools that once received high scores pre-pandemic, are now rated as provisionally accredited. Then as now full accreditation is 70% and above, under 50% is unaccredited and between 50% and 70% is provisionally accredited.

Here are how local school districts scored in the past two years:

MSIP 6 Annual Performance Review

                                     2023            2022

Belton                         78.2%           69.5%

Center                         67.8%           65%

Grandview                  68.4%          71.7%

Hickman Mills           62.5%         62.2%

Ray-Pec                        81.1%          78.9%

Accredited is 70% and higher. Provisionally accredited category is between 50% and 70%. Unaccredited is below 50%

Prior to the pandemic, these scores were higher. In 2018 Center scored 90.4%, Grandview 90.2%, Hickman Mills 77.3%, all above the provisionally credited range. 

Future Hope

Superintendent Obeng would like the Missouri State Board of Education to afford Hickman Mills School District the same Alternative Accreditation Framework for Provisionally Accredited Schools that was given the Kansas City Public Schools in 2022. That could have been a topic of conversation this year, but that opportunity must wait. 

Newly elected Board President Irene Kendrick says there is hope for change in the near future with the incoming Missouri Department of Education Commissioner Karla Eslinger.  “After our meeting with her, we felt she understood our plight,” says Kendrick. 

Eslinger takes over her new role this summer.