Statewide Iowa — The Iowa Department of Education has released the latest version of a school report card that ranks each school based on a series of criteria. And out of the twelve school districts in our four counties, one school in each county has at least one attendance center in need of improvement, according to the report cards.
Department of Ed spokesperson Staci Hupp says the report cards are part of an annual requirement.
Hupp says the report does single out schools that need work.
There were 148 of the one-thousand-295 schools that were identified as needing improvement. Hupp says the overall distribution of schools by rating category changed little. The High Performing category saw the highest increase in numbers.
One new area this year is a measure of how well students are prepared for postsecondary education.
Hupp says the information is available for everyone to see how their local school is doing.
The report found just under two percent of the schools ranked as “exceptional,” around 15 percent were rated “high performing,” nearly 34 percent rated “commendable.”
In our area, the school districts that have at least one attendance center in need of improvement are George-Little Rock, Harris-Lake Park, Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn, and West Sioux. All four of West Sioux’s attendance centers are in the “needs improvement” category.
On the other hand, there were also four school districts in our area that were on the other end of the scale, with at least one center attaining the “high performing” level. They were Central Lyon, Sibley-Ocheyedan, Sheldon, and MOC-Floyd Valley. It is worth noting that some of the school districts that need improvement also have centers listed as “commendable.”
In Sheldon, East Elementary was listed as “high performing.” Sheldon High School was “commendable.” Sheldon Middle School was “acceptable.”
To see all the statistics available, you can visit iaschoolperformance.gov/ECP/Home/Index
