Richland County School District One reviews underperforming-school plans as state accountability rules change

Richland County School District One held a work session on plans for underperforming schools focused on how state accountability rules determine ratings and how principals are using local data and interventions to try to improve results.

Dr. Minor, a district presenter on accountability, told the board the session was required by South Carolina Code §59-18-1615 and said the plans were sent to commissioners on Friday, January 24. "The plans that you have were emailed to you on Friday, January 24th," Dr. Minor said, and printed copies were placed at commissioners’ seats for the meeting.

The presentation reviewed how the state assigns school report-card ratings. For elementary and middle schools, Dr. Minor described indicators including academic achievement (SC READY ELA and math), preparing-for-success subjects (science), student progress (growth), school climate (surveys) and multilingual-learner measures. At the high-school level she said the state recently added a "high school student success" indicator (12 points), with graduation rate and college- and career-ready (CCR) measures each worth 19 points. Dr. Minor said the changes reduced points previously available in other categories after the state adopted the new weighting for the 2023–24 school year.

Dr. Minor and district staff also summarized how student counts are determined (students continuously enrolled from the 45th…