3011 - ACADEMIC ACCOUNTABILITY

3011.1 Purpose 

Durham Public Schools (DPS) Theory of Action charges the central administration to manage the core educational functions of our schools in ways that guarantee equity, consistency, and ingenuity across schools, with the ultimate intent of maximizing achievement for all students.  The purpose of this policy is to outline an accountability framework – a series of standards, evaluation/reporting practices, rewards and incentives, and consequent support structures – to promote and ensure excellent teaching and learning at all schools in DPS.  The continuum of support ranges from intensive intervention for low performing schools to performance empowerment for high performing schools.  Under this policy, all schools are held to high standards relative to specific performance measures.  The district administration will refine the metrics, measures, and indicators to continuously improve student learning.  The Superintendent is responsible for improving systemic capacity to achieve the stated goals.

3011.2 Terminology

a. Standards are multiple performance targets that indicate how well a school is functioning in relation to district goals.  DPS standards address levels of performance and improvement across assessment, academic program, and culture/climate domains.  Essential assessment outcome indicators include state test performance, local test performance, and advanced academics test performance.  Essential academic program indicators are course offerings, equity of learning opportunities, and graduation rates.  Essential culture and climate indicators are student attendance, teacher attendance, teacher retention, teacher certification, student suspensions, parental engagement, staffing/allocations and school working/learning conditions.

b. Evaluation/reporting refers to the systematic practices of data gathering for the assessment, academic program, and culture/climate domains emphasized by DPS and the structured review of data by administration and the Board for the purpose of ensuring accountability in achieving standards.

c. Recognition and rewards refers to recognizing and rewarding schools for their performance.  Schools will be publicly recognized and rewarded for their performance and accomplishing their targets.  Showcase opportunities will occur with those schools performing at the highest level.

d. Consequent support structures are a set of practices and opportunities specifically designed to ensure that schools meet standards for levels of performance and growth.  The nature and intensity of support provided to each school will be determined by the school’s level of performance.

3011.3 Overview of the Accountability Framework

The Board is committed to high achievement for all students and successful  performance for all schools in DPS.  Therefore, it is essential that the Board develop  an accountability framework to recognize the strengths of each school and to  determine the need for oversight and support at each school.  Toward that end, the  Superintendent will present annually to the Board a “State of Our Schools” report.

a. The State of Our Schools report will:

i. Include a summary of the district performance on the data dashboard;
ii. Contain a scorecard for each school detailing levels of performance and improvement for all assessment, academic program, and culture/climate standards;
iii. Indicate the performance and improvement rating for each school; and
iv. Designate the support structure plan for each school.

b. Scorecards
The Board recognizes that assessment, academic program, and culture/climate  indicators are highly related and are essential measures of school functioning.    Consequently, the Superintendent will develop a data gathering method that  provides up-to-date assessment, academic program, and culture/climate indicators  of performance and improvement that will be reported yearly in a scorecard  format for each school.  Specific scorecard categories include attendance,  suspensions, retentions, advanced academics participation, teacher statistics, state  assessments, local assessments, and teacher working conditions.  In addition to  yearly summaries of performance and improvement, the scorecard will contain  performance growth targets for the subsequent year so that adequate growth may  be evaluated.

c. Central Services Support Team Model 
The Superintendent will use federal, state, and local performance standards to  determine the support structure that is most appropriate for each school.  The  nature and intensity of the support provided to each school will be consistent with  the analysis of the school’s data.  Each school will be assigned to a classification  system for determining support based on four metrics:  percent of AYP goals met,  ABCs growth, ABCs composite, and the school scorecard performance:

Tier I: Intensive Managed Schools
 Tier II: Moderate Managed Schools
 Tier III: Targeted Support Schools
 Tier IV: Limited Support Schools
 Tier V: Performance Empowered Schools
 Tier VI: Model Performance Schools

3011.4 Oversight

On an annual basis and at a public meeting, the Superintendent shall present to the  Board a written report of the State of Our Schools and any recommendations needing  action by the Board.  The Superintendent will utilize a data gathering method that  provides up-to-date measures of standards listed above that will be compiled in  school scorecards.

3011.5 Policy Review and Evaluation

The Board will review this policy biennially to ensure that it promotes maximum  accountability and student achievement.

Cross References:  Policies 3010, 3012, 3013, Data Dashboard
Legal References:
Adopted:  March 26, 2009