Section 160.522

Title XI EDUCATION AND LIBRARIES

Chapter 160

Effective - 28 Aug 2014, 4 histories   

  160.522.  School accountability report card for each school district, purpose — standard form, contents — distribution of report card information. — 1.  The department of elementary and secondary education shall produce or cause to be produced, at least annually, a school accountability report card for each public school district, each public school building in a school district, and each charter school in the state.  The report card shall be designed to satisfy state and federal requirements for the disclosure of statistics about students, staff, finances, academic achievement, and other indicators.  The purpose of the report card shall be to provide educational statistics and accountability information for parents, taxpayers, school personnel, legislators, and the print and broadcast news media in a standardized, easily accessible form.

  2.  The department of elementary and secondary education shall develop a standard form for the school accountability report card.  The information reported shall include, but not be limited to, the district's most recent accreditation rating, enrollment, rates of pupil attendance, high school dropout rate and graduation rate, the number and rate of suspensions of ten days or longer and expulsions of pupils, the district ratio of students to administrators and students to classroom teachers, the average years of experience of professional staff and advanced degrees earned, student achievement as measured through the assessment system developed pursuant to section 160.518, student scores on the ACT, along with the percentage of graduates taking the test, average teachers' and administrators' salaries compared to the state averages, average per-pupil current expenditures for the district as a whole and by attendance center as reported to the department of elementary and secondary education, the adjusted tax rate of the district, assessed valuation of the district, percent of the district operating budget received from state, federal, and local sources, the percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, data on the percent of students continuing their education in postsecondary programs, information about the job placement rate for students who complete district vocational education programs, whether the school district currently has a state-approved gifted education program, and the percentage and number of students who are currently being served in the district's state-approved gifted education program.

  3.  The report card shall permit the disclosure of data on a school-by-school basis, but the reporting shall not be personally identifiable to any student or education professional in the state.

  4.  The report card shall identify each school or attendance center that has been identified as a priority school under sections 160.720 and 161.092.  The report also shall identify attendance centers that have been categorized under federal law as needing improvement or requiring specific school improvement strategies.

  5.  The report card shall not limit or discourage other methods of public reporting and accountability by local school districts.  Districts shall provide information included in the report card to parents, community members, the print and broadcast news media, and legislators by December first annually or as soon thereafter as the information is available to the district, giving preference to methods that incorporate the reporting into substantive official communications such as student report cards.  The school district shall provide a printed copy of the district-level or school-level report card to any patron upon request and shall make reasonable efforts to supply businesses such as, but not limited to, real estate and employment firms with copies or other information about the reports so that parents and businesses from outside the district who may be contemplating relocation have access.

  6.  For purposes of completing and distributing the annual report card as prescribed in this section, a school district may include the data from a charter school located within such school district, provided the local board of education or special administrative board for such district and the charter school reach mutual agreement for the inclusion of the data from the charter schools and the terms of such agreement are approved by the state board of education. The charter school shall not be required to be a part of the local educational agency of such school district and may maintain a separate local educational agency status.

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(L. 1993 S.B. 380 § 5, A.L. 1997 H.B. 641 & 593, A.L. 2000 S.B. 944, A.L. 2001 H.B. 865 merged with S.B. 575, A.L. 2005 H.B. 297, A.L. 2012 S.B. 599, A.L. 2014 S.B. 701)