Accreditation provides a process for the State Board of Education to fulfill its constitutional responsibility for supervising the public schools of the state. Delta County Joint School District #50 has, as a whole, received full accreditation status through June 2014.

Last year, the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) implemented a new school accreditation process, streamlined to focus on five points of accountability in each school district, including achievement status and growth, achievement gaps, and post-secondary readiness.

The school district has adopted that model and applied it to the next step — determining accreditation for each school within the district. The result, says John Jones, director of community relations, is a standardized process which looks at five criteria — achievement, growth, closing gaps, postsecondary readiness, and finance and safety.

Achievement and growth are determined by CSAP scores for each school. The CSAP scores are also analyzed to see if schools are narrowing the achievement gaps for low-income and minority students. Post-secondary readiness applies only to schools that have grades 9-12 and is based upon ACT scores and graduation rates.

Schools on accreditation watch are required to develop an improvement plan. For those schools, additional points can be awarded for a successful improvement plan.

The result, Jones said, is a more well-defined, standardized process for evaluating schools within the district.

Applying the formula resulted in the following report to the school board:

Accredited with distinction — Crawford K-8, Delta Academy of Applied Learning, Lincoln Elementary School and North Fork Montessori School.

Full accreditation — Cedaredge Elementary School, Cedaredge Middle School, Delta High School, Delta Middle School, Hotchkiss High School, Hotchkiss K-8 School, Paonia Elementary School and Paonia Junior/Senior High School.

Accreditation with support — Cedaredge High School, Delta Opportunity School, Delta Vision, Garnet Mesa Elementary School, and Surface Creek Vision.

Accreditation watch — Lamborn Vision School and North Fork Vision.

Probation — none.

Jones noted that Delta Vision, Garnet Mesa Elementary and Surface Creek Vision could have moved higher on the scale but schools can only move one level, up or down, each year.

The goal of the accreditation process is to foster greater accountability from the schools, to encourage excellence by assessing student performance in relation to state standards and assessments, and to maintain a school and community partnership for the ongoing improvement of public education.

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