The good and bad of this year’s APR scores

By Kathy Feist

The  Annual Performance Reviews for 2024/2025 are out for school districts in Missouri and at least one south Kansas City school district has reason to celebrate. For others, low scores signaled a need for more improvement.   

Hickman Mills, which lost full accreditation in 2012, earned an 80.5% APR score from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). That score, combined with 72.2% earned the previous year, puts the school district on the road to full accreditation. 

School districts scoring 60% or lower are often in danger of becoming partially accredited, or losing accreditation if 50% or lower. 

So will Hickman Mills finally be fully accredited this year?

“No, not this year,” says Lisa Sireno, DESE’s assistant commissioner, Office of Quality Schools. “We have to have two consecutive composites above 70. So under the current procedure, they wouldn’t be eligible to move.”

While Hickman Mills has two consecutive scores above 70–in 2024 and 2025– they are not composite scores. 

DESE decided last year due to education lost during the pandemic that accreditation would be based on two consecutive composite scores: those from 2022 to 2024 (three years) and those from 2025 and 2026 (two years).  

Hickman Mill’s composite score for 2022-24 is 68.3%. Their second so far is 80.5%.

“If they continue their progress or hold steady, in 2026 we would be moving them from provisional to accredited,” says Sireno. 

“We are incredibly proud to see HMC-1 achieve an 80.5% APR,” said Interim Superintendent Dennis Carpenter in a press release. “This reflects the dedication of our students, the commitment of our staff, and the support of our families and community.” 

Hickman Mills’ scores had seen an increase in the past few years after voters in the district approved a $20 million bond and tax levy under the leadership of then Superintendent Yaw Obeng in 2022. The levy allowed for a 25% salary increase for teachers and staff, which helped attract and retain talent to the district.

APR Scores for schools in the South KC readership area

Other schools in the southland that saw increased scores included the Academy for Integrated Arts, Belton School District, Grandview Schools District, Raymore-Peculiar, and University Academy. 

Those that saw a decrease were Academie Lafayette and Center School District. 

Brookside Charter and Kansas City Public Schools stayed the same. 

Boosting scores

Brookside Charter, which has a low score of 50.9%, could be considered in danger of losing accreditation. But Superintendent Roger Offield says the reason for the low score is due to DESE’s new category called a Continuous Improvement Plan (CIP). 

“The Annual Performance Report is made up of two parts: Continuous Improvement and academic performance,” he says. “Charter schools do not have to do a CIP, but they lose all of the points in their denominator of the equation.”

“When DESE presented this to charter schools and we chose to opt out, they didn’t tell us that it would be held against us,” he says. 

DESE chose to add the CIP category after creating a new APR scoring method in 2022, called MCIP 6, different from those used before the pandemic. With most schools closed and children learning from home during the pandemic, APR scores were expected to suffer. And they did. Had Missouri held to composite scores earned in 2023, nearly 100 schools in Missouri would have lost full accreditation. 

To balance the score, DESE added the new CIP category that measures data-based decision-making, school climate surveys, leadership, and achieved goals. Scores from the CIP account for 30%, while Student Academic Performance now accounts for 70% in the overall APR. 

Most schools receive high ratings in the CIP. This boosts a poor Student Performance score.

For Brookside though, opting out of the CIP led to a lowering of their APR score.  Student Performance alone is 64%. But the 30% for their CIP brought the overall score down to 50%.

Sireno says that while charter schools can opt out, their available CIP numbers will still be assessed and counted.

 “If they are assigned to participate and they just decline or decide to opt out on their own, then that would definitely show up in their score,” says Sireno. “We did not provide an opt out provision to [charter schools] to say, if you opt out, then we won’t include it in the denominator.”

Center and Grandview

Of course there were many schools that were grateful for the addition of the new category. 

“We are pleased that the Continuous Improvement ratings across the district remain strong at 88.3%,” says Sonja Renner regarding Center School District’s CIP scores. “[It] indicates that improvement processes are in place and working even as academic proficiency levels remain below state targets.”

Center’s Student Performance rated low at 55%, but was boosted by the CIP score of 88.3%.

Grandview Superintendent Kenny Rodrequez points out that the low Student Performance score can be deceptive. What was once measured as part of the Student Performance evaluation has been moved to the CIP category. “Having the new category does help,” he says. 

He appreciates that DESE won’t be making any decision on accreditation until the 2026-2027 school year. 

“Any new system that comes into place takes time to understand so that we can improve and get results that we are looking for,” he says. 

Grandview earned a 90% on Continuous Improvement but a 56.4% on Student Performance. 

Nevertheless, Rodrequez is happy to see a 3-point increase this year.

“We are on the right track academically,” he says. 

 Rodrequez attributes the low scores in part to tracking problems within the school, especially among a 24% transient school population. 

(For the record, Hickman Mills received a CIP score of 80.5% and 75% for Student Performance.)

According to DESE, scores improved this year among the 310 school districts in Missouri. Missouri’s attendance rate, graduation rate, and Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores also continued to improve.

“Although the trendline shows slow and steady progress, there is still work to do,” says Commissioner of Education Dr. Karla Eslinger.