Lafayette district highlights board-approved accountability system, emphasizes attendance and transparency

A staff member for the Lafayette Parish School System told attendees at an event at Lafayette High School that the district has a board-approved accountability system built around four community-defined core values and will emphasize attendance and truancy as part of its measures.

The accountability system matters because, the staff member said, the district will publish a baseline of where every school stands and call out physical issues and attendance problems so parents and the public can make informed choices about schools.

According to the presentation, principals have been briefed on the system and on data the district will share. The staff member said the district will measure four values the community identified as important, including social-emotional outcomes, and will compare schools to that baseline. The speaker said the district is “the only school district in the state that has a board approved accountability system that is based upon those core core values,” attributing that description to the district’s board-approved approach.

District staff also discussed plans to track attendance and truancy explicitly and to be transparent about when schools have attendance challenges, physical problems or other issues that could affect families’ choices. Officials framed the approach as a way to show returns on the district’s investments in students and to provide parents clearer information about school performance.

No formal motion or vote on the accountability system was recorded in the provided transcript excerpt. The presentation did not specify a date for public release of the baseline data or detailed definitions of the four core values.