The Hickman Mills C-1 School District received another boost to its hopes of receiving full state accreditation, scoring 80.5% of the possible points on Missouri’s Annual Performance Report.

That’s comfortably above the 70% threshold typically needed for full accreditation. 

The district surpassed the threshold last year as well, but learned the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education had moved the goalposts, asking for more years of data so it could base accreditation recommendations on an average over several years. 

Under the DESE plan unveiled last year, Hickman Mills’ latest score could bump its composite scores, created by combining multiple years of data, high enough for accreditation. The decision is ultimately up to the state Board of Education. 

Based on ongoing conversations with the state and the response to its presentation last year, Hickman Mills is “cautiously optimistic” that the board will grant it full accreditation in January, said Katie Roe, the district’s assistant superintendent for academic services. 

“We’re super excited to see a reflection of the hard work, the focus and really, I think, the dedication of students, staff and families here in the district,” Roe said. “Moving from last year 72.7 to 80.5 this year shows that the systems we put in place are making a tremendous impact on teaching and learning across the district.”

Around the state, the latest round of school performance scores has solidified some districts’ accreditation while placing others’ in doubt, at least in the long term. 

In the south Kansas City area, the Center 58 School District and Grandview C-4 School District are among those that must raise their scores by next year or risk losing full accreditation.

But some districts got good news. The Raytown school district, which scored below the fully accredited range when the scores first rolled out, has raised both its 2025 score and three-year composite above 70%. 

“We are proud of the growth shown across our schools,” Raytown Superintendent Penelope Martin-Knox said in a quote shared by the district’s chief communications officer. “These results highlight the dedication of our teachers, staff and administrators to helping every student reach their full potential. … We remain focused on continuous improvement and student success.”

Kansas City Public Schools, which regained full accreditation through a special process in early 2022, once again kept its composite and annual scores in the accredited range. The district also scored higher than about half of Kansas City’s charter schools. 

KCPS officials declined to comment until they receive additional information from the state.

Education Commissioner Karla Eslinger lauded the progress made by schools across the state, saying that since Missouri “raised the bar” for districts in 2022, students, teachers and schools “are rising to that challenge.”

“We continue to see improvement in our annual performance report scores across the state,” Eslinger said at a press conference Nov. 6. “Granted, we are not getting 15-20% increases. The increases are small increments, but we are moving in the right direction.”

“These scores reflect that a vast majority of our districts are meeting our expectations, which means they are fully accredited,” she added. “That means that 785,000 students are enrolled in public schools that meet the standards put in place by our state Board of Education.”

See how your district scored here. 

How APR scores work

The annual reports — based on metrics such as test scores, student academic growth, graduation rates, attendance and improvement plans — are condensed into an overall percentage score. 

Generally, districts must earn at least 70% of the possible points to be fully accredited and 95% to be accredited with distinction. Districts can be partially accredited if they earn between 50% and 70% and unaccredited if they fall below 50%. The state also looks at districts’ finances and whether their superintendents are certified. 

But due to updates of the scoring system and the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, Missouri hasn’t used those scores to update schools’ accreditation status for years. 

According to the plan DESE laid out in 2024, the state could start using this year’s scores to raise accreditation and use next year’s scores to lower accreditation. 

That’s because its composite scores currently include data from 2022, a pilot year for the new approach. Under state law, the 2022 data can’t be used to lower a district’s accreditation, but can be used to raise it, Eslinger said.

The state assigns annual performance scores to charter schools as well but doesn’t accredit them.

In a news release, DESE said more than 310 of the state’s 517 districts improved their scores this year, more than 91% of the state’s districts meet or exceed statewide standards and about 92% of students attend school in a district that meets standards. 

Hickman Mills

Hickman Mills has not been fully accredited since 2012. 

Last year, when the district also scored about 70%, leaders were proud of the achievement but disappointed by the state’s decision that it wouldn’t yet raise accreditation. 

“It helps everybody stay where they are,” then-Superintendent Yaw Obeng told The Beacon last year, “but it doesn’t help us.”

Obeng was relieved of his duties in July of this year, and the board appointed Dennis Carpenter as interim superintendent. The APR data that led to Hickman Mills’ higher score comes from the period when Obeng was still superintendent. 

This year, Hickman Mills scored the same as the Independence School District and better than two dozen Missouri districts and charter schools in the Kansas City metropolitan area, including nearby KCPS and the neighboring Raytown, Grandview and Center school districts. 

Perhaps most importantly for the district’s accreditation hopes, the score raises the three-year composite of Hickman Mills’ APR scores to 74.1%. 

Roe, the assistant superintendent, said the district’s score came from improvements in student growth, graduation rates and college and career readiness. 

Student growth is a measure of how much students are learning over the course of a year, even if they start below grade level. College and career readiness includes how students perform on national assessments and how many are taking advanced placement or dual credit classes. 

To make progress, Roe said, the district focused on quality classroom instruction for all students and extra support for those who need help catching up to grade level. It has also emphasized wraparound services such as social-emotional learning and a safe school climate. 

Asked whether DESE would recommend Hickman Mills for accreditation, Eslinger told The Beacon the district could be recommended this or next year if its scores meet the requirements.

“If they are able to meet the mark next year and we’re able to raise them, great. If they’re able to raise them this year by meeting the mark, (great),” Eslinger said. “But they’ve got to be able to have the scores and the composites and the other pieces, and if they can do that, hallelujah.” 

Roe said it will be a great affirmation of everyone’s work if the district regains full accreditation. 

“It’s everyone working together to ensure that students are in school, that they have a high quality teacher in front of them, that they’re surrounded by love and care,” she said. “It will really be a pride point for everyone in this south Kansas City area.” 

But there’s also more work to do, she said, to make sure all students are at grade level. 

“We know we haven’t reached the top end,” she said. “Our work has to continue and those strategic focus areas have to continue so that we see a path forward.”

How your district scored

In about two dozen Kansas City-area districts, scores ranged from the mid- to high 60s (in Center, Grandview and Excelsior Springs) to 90 or more (in Park Hill, Grain Valley, Platte County R-III and Kearney). 

Three-year composite scores ranged from the high 60s in Center and Grandview to 90 in Kearney. 

In an emailed statement, the Grandview School District said the scores reflect both progress and areas where more growth is needed. 

“Our overall APR increased by 3%, and our Continuous Improvement score rose to 90%, reflecting the focused work happening across classrooms to strengthen instruction and support student learning. We also continue to see steady progress in English/Language Arts, including strong gains for student groups,” the statement said. “While we recognize there is more work ahead, we are confident in the strategic steps we are taking and remain dedicated to improving outcomes for all students.”

The Center School District also sent a statement. 

“Center School District’s Annual Performance Report tells a story of transition, correction and opportunity. We continue to focus on moving from progress to proficiency. Our academic systems: Professional Learning Teams, MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support), and small-group instruction, are designed to do exactly that.

“We are pleased that the Continuous Improvement ratings across the district remain strong at 88.3%, which indicates that improvement processes are in place and working even as academic proficiency levels remain below state targets.”

Kansas City charter school scores varied even more, from the high 40s for Lee A. Tolbert Academy — one of the three lowest scores in the state — to above 90 for Frontier Schools. 

Charter schools are public schools that are free to attend, but are not connected to the local school district and are free from some rules and regulations that bind traditional public schools. In the Kansas City area, they are only allowed without the bounds of KCPS. 

The state doesn’t designate charter schools as accredited or unaccredited. But charter schools have sponsors that decide whether to renew their permission to operate based on their performance, sometimes comparing them to the traditional school district. 

This year, half of Kansas City’s 20 charter schools had lower scores than KCPS and half had higher scores. 

Eleven had lower three-year composite scores, including seven that were at least 10 percentage points lower. Nine had higher composite scores, including four that were at least 10 percentage points higher. 

Noah Devine, executive director of the Missouri Charter Public School Association, said that while Kansas City-area charter schools’ scores spanned a wide range, the average score increased from 68.6 last year to 71.2 this year, just below KCPS’ score of 72.2.

He said charter schools saw significant improvements in some areas, particularly math scores, but that there was still progress to be made.

“Our expectation is for high-quality charter schools,” Devine said. “By definition, that does mean that you’re expecting to surpass the local district which you reside in, as well as, ultimately, surpassing the statewide averages, and we have cases where that’s not currently happening, and they’re working diligently to get there.”

“Certain schools — and this is true in KCPS, as well — happen to serve students who, for one reason or another, are starting really far behind,” he added. “It could be that they don’t have access to pre-K in their community. It could be a number of things. But there is a challenge there. The process by which you get a kid on grade level simply takes time, and it’s not there yet.”

Charter schools across the state have been testing a “variety of intervention strategies” and sharing best practices, Devine said. He added that charter leaders have described the current school year — which will be included in next year’s report — as “the best start of any year since COVID.”