Englewood Schools News

The Colorado Department of Education has issued District Performance Framework (DPF) reports with an Accreditation Rating for each school district and School Performance Framework (SPF) reports with a Plan Type for each school for the first time in two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following indicators determine Performance Frameworks ratings and plans:

• Academic Achievement - the percentage of students meeting or exceeding grade level expectations and the percentage of students by subpopulation meeting or exceeding grade level expectations.
• Academic Growth* - the academic growth of all students on the performance from the previous year’s CMAS and the academic growth of students by subpopulation on performance from the previous year’s CMAS.
• Postsecondary & Workforce Readiness - Colorado PSAT/SAT performance, graduation/dropout rates, and upon graduation from high school, students enrolled in a two- or four-year institution of higher learning.

Englewood School District has some amazing celebrations to make regarding Plan Types for some of our schools (All DPFs and SPFs are located here). Clayton and Englewood Leadership Academy continue to be rated Performance schools. Bishop has moved from Improvement to Performance. This is due to the hard work and dedication of our students and staff.

As much as there are celebrations to be made, there are also some areas of growth for Englewood Schools. Lower participation rates for CMAS/PSAT/SAT testing in the 2021 and 2022 school years have impacted our school's ratings in the areas of growth and total participation. In the 2021 school year, the state issued an accountability pause and alternate testing schedule (not all grades took all content testing). The alternate testing schedule caused elementary and middle schools to only be able to show growth in half of the content areas. In addition, fewer students count for the Academic Growth rate because there was lower participation overall in the 2021 school year and students need to have taken the state test for 2 consecutive years to show growth. Therefore, even though Academic Growth still accounts for 60% of the school rating, elementary and middle schools have half as many students and subjects to show growth due to the alternate testing schedule the year prior. This has resulted in an incomplete picture of the Academic Growth of our student population.

In addition, participation rates are playing a much larger role in Accreditation Ratings and Plan Types this year than they typically do. The State Board of Education’s rules regarding the ability for districts and schools to formally “Request to Reconsider” their Plan Type ratings based on local data have changed. Schools now need to have a 90% total participation rate, this includes parent opt-outs as non-participants. This means that total participation is the percentage of students who participated in CMAS and/or PSAT/SAT testing out of the total population of our students in testing grades. Therefore, due to lower total participation rates, Englewood Schools is unable to respond to our preliminary rating in the same ways we have historically been allowed to by the Colorado Department of Education. Those ways include using local data and omitting our Alternative Education Campus. Therefore, even though Englewood earned the same percentage points, 42.1% on our DPF, the rating has dropped from Improvement to Priority Improvement.

Englewood Schools leaders and staff remain dedicated to the purpose statement: Englewood Schools has a moral imperative and unwavering commitment to ensure extraordinary outcomes for each student. We believe diversity is an asset and will not allow a student’s identity and culture to be predictive of their outcomes. In service of this, we will maintain high expectations and nurture all aspects of the whole child.

With that said, we will continue to build off of the successes and growth we are seeing in the local school and district data as well as dissecting state data. With our new strategic plan coming, Englewood Schools continues to build a new tradition of excellence.