St. Louis schools win provisional accreditation from the state

In Education

St. Louis Beacon

Members of the Missouri state board of education voted unanimously Tuesday to grant provisional accreditation to the St. Louis Public Schools, accepting a recommendation from Commissioner Chris Nicastro.

Reversing her earlier opinion that the city schools needed more years of progress before moving up from their unaccredited status, Nicastro and members of her staff told the board meeting in Jefferson City that since losing accreditation five years ago, the district has made solid gains in academic performance and fiscal responsibility, primarily because of strong leadership.

Though it had not arrived at the place where she hoped it would eventually reach, Nicastro said, the district has started on its way and deserves to be provisionally accredited.

In its latest report card from the state, the city schools scored seven points out of a possible 14 – one more than last year and one more than needed to be classified as provisionally accredited.

The report prompted Kelvin Adams, superintendent of the district, to call repeatedly for the state to reclassify the city schools. Members of the special administrative board that has governed the district since 2007 also pushed for the state board to put the issue on its agenda.

But when the state figures were announced, Nicastro said that the progress in the city schools was admirable but she would like to see three years of data before the district received provisional accreditation.

“St. Louis, at least at this point, appears to be a success story,” she said in August. “But I think they still have a way to go."

Figures presented Tuesday showed that the district ranks toward the bottom of those in the state.

Since 2009, the district has steadily improved in its annual report card, from three points to five to six to seven. This year is the last year that the state will be using the fourth version of the Missouri School Improvement Plan to rate schools; next year, the fifth version, or MSIP5, will take effect.

The SAB took over the city schools from the elected board when the district lost accreditation. But the change to provisional accreditation does not carry with it an automatic end to the schools’ status as a transitional district or the authority of the SAB, which will remain.

With the move of St. Louis to provisional accreditation status, the only districts in the state that are unaccredited are Riverview Gardens and Kansas City. Normandy schools are scheduled to lose accreditation as of Jan. 1.

In a statement issued by his office, Gov. Jay Nixon said:

“The decision today by the State Board of Education to reclassify the St. Louis Public School District as provisionally accredited recognizes the real progress the district has made over the past five years. I applaud this commitment to improvement and the strong support shown by St. Louis business leaders and the entire community, and I urge the district’s leadership, teachers, students and families to keep up their hard work. It is vital that this progress continues because the children of St. Louis need and deserve an outstanding education and a district that has earned full accreditation.”

Our earlier story:

“Seven points equals accreditation,” Adams said in August after the district’s annual progress report under the Missouri School Improvement Plan was released. “My understanding from reading the policy and the APR guidelines was that seven points equal provisional accreditation — period.”

Chris Nicastro, Missouri’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, countered that what the state is looking for is not a particular number but evidence that any growth in student achievement can be sustained over a period of time, at least three years.

In response to a letter sent by the special administrative board that has been running the district since 2007, its accreditation status will be reviewed by the state school board on Tuesday in Jefferson City. But even if the board votes to go along with Adams’ wishes – and that is a significant if – don’t look for any change in how the district is governed.

Those who have analyzed the law that put the SAB into place say that it allows the appointed board to remain in control of the city schools if and when they no longer are unaccredited. The circumstances under which the elected school board could once again run the system are unclear, and judging by the opinion of Peter Herschend, head of the state board, that day isn’t likely to be coming any time soon.

“I think (SAB President) Rick Sullivan and his leadership is what brought Dr. Adams and his leadership to the table. St. Louis didn’t just progress all by itself because it wanted to. It takes absolute dedicated leadership, and you have that in Kelvin Adams and you have that in Rick Sullivan.”

Not surprisingly, that viewpoint doesn’t sit well with Katie Wessling, the president of the elected board.

“While the law does not require them at any point to return to local governance,” she said in an email, “it is the right thing to do and should be done as soon as possible in a rational, planned way – not just a ‘flip of the switch’ as we experienced when the SAB was created in 2007. It was irresponsible to do it that way then and it would be no less irresponsible to do it that way now.”

Points and progress

The state’s system of evaluating school districts awards up to 14 points on a variety of measures, some strictly academic and others not. For full accreditation, districts need nine points; for provisional accreditation, they need six. Anything less than that rates them as unaccredited, a status that now includes St. Louis, Kansas City and Riverview Gardens.

As of Jan. 1, Normandy is scheduled to join that list, though it is contesting whether it should receive an extra point for its graduation rate. That dispute remains unsettled.

Under state law, the state can appoint special administrative boards to run unaccredited districts, though there is currently a two-year waiting period for that to happen. Lawmakers who wanted the state to be able to act more quickly for Kansas City tried to shorten or eliminate that time, but their efforts fell short in Jefferson City this year.

After their schools added a point to their previous total, reaching seven -- up one from the year before and two from the year before that -- St. Louis officials tried to get onto the state board’s agenda last month, when the accreditation decisions were made for Normandy and other districts, but it didn’t make the cut.

A letter from Sullivan and other members of the SAB to Nicastro and members of the state board noted that St. Louis students “students continue to make significant gains in their academic performance at a rate above the state average” and that other problems that resulted in the SAB takeover, including financial and governance, have also made significant progress.

“Although there is still a great deal of work to do in order to restore the district to fully accredited status,” the SAB members said, “it is clear that the processes and plans implemented over the last four years have put the district on the right trajectory. Because of the concerted efforts of our students, teachers, principals, and the leadership team put in place by Dr. Adams; our kids have earned the right to say they attend a provisionally accredited school district for the first time since 2007. The students and their families deserve to know that their hard work is  producing positive results.”

In response, DESE put the question of the St. Louis schools on this month’s agenda, though Nicastro has given no sense of what her recommendation will be – a recommendation that the board accepts in the vast majority of cases.

St. Louis Public Schools say they do not expect to have anyone at Tuesday’s meeting to make a presentation on behalf of the district.

Changing the grading system

Weighing both sides – the district’s point of view and the commissioner’s – is key to how state board member Mike Jones plans to vote. Jones, who represents the St. Louis area on the board, told the Beacon that the data will be the same as the board has had since report cards came out in August.