Seven out of the nine schools in Summit School District saw growth in their accreditation status scores handed down by Colorado Department of Education. District officials say they plan to home in on what works for future years to close the remaining gaps.

The Colorado Department of Education releases the preliminary School Performance Framework and District Performance Framework ratings at the start of each school year. Accreditation status is broken up into six categories: insufficient data, accredited with turnaround plan, accredited with priority improvement plan, accredited with improvement plan, accredited and accredited with distinction. The scores are based on a 100-point scale for both the district rating at-large and individual school rating, and the results of standardized tests administered to students determine the rating. 

For third through eighth grade, the test administered is the Colorado Measures of Academic Success and for grades 9-11, the tests given out are the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test, commonly called the PSAT, and the Scholastic Aptitude Test, also known as the SAT.

For the 2023-24 year, the district at-large received a score of 55%, bumping it to the “accredited with improvement plan” status. This year, with a score of 58.1%, the district is now in “accredited” status. 

Chief transformation officer Laura Cotsapas said though there were several areas of notable improvement, the work done by Frisco Elementary School to boost its individual school rating by around 22% stands out. The school received the highest rating in the district at 87%. 

She said principal Todd Kirkendall put a school-wide focus on tier one instruction. She said Kirkendall and his staff were granular with tier one instruction and used a book on how to best implement it in a way that created a productive and accessible learning environment.

Summit Cove Elementary School saw the second most growth with a 17% increase compared to last year and now has a rating of 74.3%. Cotsapas said, after declines in their scores previous years, staff at Summit Cove delved further into student data and began evaluating it weekly through a program called Multi-tiered Systems of Support. Teachers and staff members emphasized the need for small group instruction more tailored to students specific needs. 

“(They did this) in a really ongoing and purposeful way and they built some great systems that really show results,” she said. 

After Frisco Elementary, Upper Blue Elementary School received the second highest accreditation rating at 78.8%. Breckenridge Elementary School received a rating of 76.7%, Snowy Peaks Jr./Sr. High School received a rating of 64.9%, Silverthorne Elementary School received a rating of 62.3%, Dillon Valley Elementary School received a 56.6% rating and Summit Middle School received a 58.8%. The only elementary school to see a drop in its accreditation score was Dillon Valley Elementary, which saw a .3% dip. 

Summit High School is the only school in the district with an improvement plan with a score of 51.1%. This is a decrease from last year’s rating of 54.2%. 

Cotsapas said secondary math at the high school and middle school will be a focus moving forward. She said the district caught a strong stride by improving math in elementary grade levels — with growth in CMAS math scores in all demographic groups except gifted-and-talented students — and officials are looking to emulate that success. 

Out of demographics of ninth and 10th graders who took the PSAT— including white students, Hispanic students, multi-language learners, non-English proficient and limited-English-proficient students, free-and-reduced-lunch students, gifted-and-talented students and special-education students — none saw growth in math. 

The PSAT math achievement score for all ninth and 10th graders was 24%. 

For SAT math achievement scores, only Hispanic students, multi-language learners, gifted-and-talented students saw growth. The overall district achievement score was 24.9%. 

The middle school achievement rating based off of CMAS math scores was 32.2%, and the elementary school achievement rate for CMAS math scores was 40.5%.

For PSAT reading and writing, the district’s achievement score was a bit higher at 60.1%, which is a drop from last year’s score of 61.9%. Only gifted-and-talented students saw growth, but their rating was 100%. The reading and writing SAT achievement score for the district was 58.3%, a 2% increase from last year. 

For the middle school, the CMAS reading and writing achievement score was 39.9%, a slight increase from last year. For elementary schools, CMAS reading and writing achievement scores were 45.1%.

Scores were low across the board for non-English-proficient and limited-english-proficient students in the district, and Cotsapas said monitoring their progress was going to be a priority this year. 

“We really believe that in sticking with our focus that we’re going to continue to see those accelerations and those gains,” Cotsapas said.