District 6 taken off 'academic watch' list

Greeley-Evans School District 6 joins five other Colorado school districts in shedding its “academic watch” label due to what the state calls “significant growth” in student achievement.

The announcement was made by District 6 officials this morning at the administration building.

“We have been dreaming about this day for two years,” said Superintendent Renae Dreier. “It was made a reality because of an incredible amount of hard work and devotion by everyone in our district.”

Fort Lupton Re-8 district is another Weld County school that was delisted in the Monday morning announcement made by Dwight Jones, Colorado Commissioner of Education.

Greeley-Evans District 6, with 18,000 students, is the largest district put on watch by the state. Its long-standing pattern of poor scores on the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests — in 2005, when the district was put on watch, it scored below the state average on all 25 tests — has shown improvement during the past two years.

Jones said in his statement that only districts with a “clear pattern of improvement” are being removed from watch. Nine other districts remain on watch, while the accreditation status of Aguilar School District 6 was downgraded from watch to probation.

In District 6, Jones’ letter to Dreier said, “the progress is genuine. However, the growth to date has not quite reached the levels agreed to in your district improvement plan. Our goal is to work in partnership with you to extend the academic progress you’ve made this far.”

A key factor for removal from watch status was how District 6 performed on weighted indices, the main method the state uses to monitor student growth.

When the district was put on watch two years ago, its weighted indices for all students in reading was 59 (state average, 79), writing was 63 (state, 78) and math was 34 (state, 56). District 6’s strategic plan, developed in response to watch status, spelled out that the district would gain six index points over two years.

The district met those goals in reading (66 in 2007 index) and writing (69), but missed its two-year goal by a point in math (39).

Meg Dillon, a parent of three current and former District 6 students, said it was hard to learn that the district was being put on academic watch.

“It’s a dramatic thing to hear that the district your children are going to school in is doing so poorly,” she said. “You want something to happen, but two years doesn’t seem like a very long time. I know they’ve worked hard and done so much to improve the district, but I sure wouldn’t want some of these kids to fall back through the cracks … because it’s not being watched carefully enough.”

Bruce Broderius, District 6 board president, said the district will remain vigilant in sticking to its strategic plan.

“This is a big day for this district and for our community,” he said. “But we know that we’ll soon be right back to work, because we all know that as good as this news today is, we have much more improvement to make.”