We want to start by thanking students, parents, teachers, and our community for a great start to the 22-23 school year. We have hit the ground running, and the beginning of the school year has been smooth. Working in a community with such high educational commitment and support makes serving in this community a pleasure. We wanted to take this opportunity to share about Ouray School’s 2022 school accreditation rating.
Those who have been in the community over the last ten years know that this is the time of year that we announce that Ouray School is once again “Accredited with Distinction.” This title is assigned to districts by the Colorado Department of Education based on academic achievement, academic growth, and postsecondary workforce readiness. Academic achievement is a measurement based on the yearly state assessment scores determining where students are academically based on grade level standards. The second measurement, academic growth, is another way to measure progress by measuring the relative growth of students from year to year. Students’ growth is measured for those who have taken the state assessment in consecutive years, but this metric is also helpful to track subpopulations like students who are behind, students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, minority students, and students with disabilities. Finally, postsecondary workforce readiness looks at graduation benchmarks, SAT scores, and dropout rates. The “Accredited with Distinction” rating has been an achievement that we have deserved and worn proudly.
This year looks a little different because Ouray School District did not receive the “Accredited with Distinction” rating. Many of you may have seen in the news, social media, or other websites that Ouray received an “Insufficient State Data” rating. The primary reasoning for this rating, which applied to nearly 40 percent of Colorado school districts, is the small size of our school. A minimum number of students in each grade level is required before the data can be reported publicly to protect sensitive student educational data. Due to interruptions in state testing from the pandemic, Ouray School did not reach this minimum number. This has not been an issue in the past, because our ratings were assigned based on a rolling three-year average, which allowed our data sample to hit the minimum threshold.
Here is the good news! Our local assessment data demonstrate that we continue to be a high achieving school. Local measures that are nationally normed, like our NWEA/MAP and PSAT assessments, show that our students continue to achieve at an exceptional level and rank high in academic growth measurements. We continue to send graduates to some of the finest institutions in the country. It will continue to be our mission to provide our community with a safe, exceptional learning environment built on high expectations. In the coming years with consecutive data, we will pick up right where we left off - “Accredited with Distinction.”
Mr. Kenneth Nelson, Pk-8 Principal, and Mr. Tod Lokey, Superintendent