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See the annual performance grades for St. Louis' school districts

Illustration by Rici Hoffarth
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St. Louis Public Radio

Normandy and Riverview Gardens  received high enough state academic performance scores to get the north St. Louis County-based school districts in better standing with state education leaders.

Two districts in the region — St. Louis City and Ferguson-Florissant — saw their annual performance scores dip below the threshold the state considers to be fully accredited. Pattonville and Orchard Farms both received perfect scores.

No district in the state earned marks that would be considered failing in the Annual Performance Report, or APR, published Wednesday by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. APR is a key indicator on how well schools are educating students.

A rise above or fall below a benchmark does not automatically mean a district’s accreditation status will change. APR scores are a major factor in how a district is classified, but the state Board of Education makes that the decision.

District performance is largely based on student test scores, as well as graduation and attendance rates.

“While there are many, many things that parents should be looking at to make decisions about their schools, we do think this is one tool they can reference that does do a comparison across the state,” education commissioner Margie Vandeven told reporters.

Grade-level subject proficiency test results are up by at least one percent, according to Vandeven. College and career readiness measures have also been inching up, she said.

An APR higher than 70 percent is considered fully accredited and below 50 percent is the unaccredited range. The state average among the more than 500 districts is 89.5 percent.

Moving on up, hopefully

Normandy schools superintendent Charles Pearson is hopeful his district will finally shed the status of Missouri’s only unaccredited school district after landing in the provisionally accredited range for the second straight year.

“It’s a big deal,” he told St. Louis Public Radio.

Normandy needed to show the state consistent improvement on the APR, Pearson said.

“We know we haven’t arrived but we’re beginning to see our points grow in academics and that’s really exciting for us,” he said.

Being bumped up to provisionally accredited later this year or early next would mean Normandy can start to phase out a student transfer program that affects unaccredited districts. Normandy has had to pay for tuition for any student wishing to attend a different, higher performing school. And it has to pay transportation costs to students that transferred to the Francis Howell school district in St. Charles County. That has cost the district millions of dollars.

Neighboring Riverview Gardens, which is currently provisionally accredited, scored in the 70-plus range for the third straight year. That makes the district a candidate to be reclassified as fully accredited.

“We’re very pleased,” superintendent Scott Spurgeon said.

Two Riverview Gardens principals sued the district last month, alleging administrators encouraged staff members to falsify attendance records.

As for St. Louis charter schools, North Side Community School earned a perfect score for the second time in a row. Preclarus Mastery Academy and Carondelet Leadership Academy were among the worst, scoring at the bottom of the provisional accreditation range.

While charter schools are given APR scores, the state does not accredit them the way it does traditional school districts.

Caveats

The performance scores may not be as telling as they appear. State education officials aren’t factoring in high school algebra and English year-end exams because of a problem with the testing vendor.

Also, because Missouri has had three different standardized tests issued to students in four years, those scores have not been calculated in due to a state law requiring a buffer year after tests are changed.Loading...

Follow Ryan and Brent on Twitter: @rpatrickdelaney; @brentajones

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Ryan Delaney works on the Innovation Trail project - covering technology, economic development, startups and other issues relating to New York's innovation economy.
Ryan Delaney
Ryan is a reporter on the education desk at St. Louis Public Radio, covering both higher education and the many school districts in the St. Louis region. He has previously reported for public radio stations WFYI in Indianapolis and WRVO in upstate New York. He began his journalism career working part time for WAER while attending Syracuse University. He's won multiple reporting awards and his work, which has aired on NPR, The Takeaway and WGBH's Innovation Hub. Having grown up in Burlington, Vt., he often spends time being in the woods hiking, camping, and skiing.
Brent Jones is a journalist who works with data and design. He joined the St. Louis Beacon after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2007. In the past five years, he has shot photos of the Pevely Dairy fire and flooding in Cairo, Ill.; compiled data on St. Louis' hottest days and whitest Christmases; edited a 30-minute video on music in Iraq; designed a 150+ page ebook; and produced audio from an improv show and more than 100 Beacon Roundtables. Jones lives in St. Louis, where he has completed a half- and full marathon and sings in a 16-member a capella madrigal ensemble.