District making progress toward accreditation

John Martin
interim superintendent
Kansas City School District

To the editor:
Last week, evaluators from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education toured our district in an effort to develop a plan to improve our schools and help the district attain full accreditation. I’d like to take a minute to explain the basics of their visit.

This state review, formally titled the Missouri School Improvement Program, measures the progress of a school district toward giving your students a quality education. Nearly 240 evaluators spent time observing classroom lessons and conducting structured interviews with students, teachers and administrators.

This review was not mandatory. The school district volunteered for the visit in an effort to move quickly toward earning full accreditation – a move that will reflect the fine education your students receive. Our goal is for the Kansas City School District to attain full accreditation by 2010. To reach that pinnacle, we need to know how we can become a more efficient education provider, and this review will help us do just that.

There is no doubt this review was a huge success. While the district’s staff and administrators played a huge part in this effort, there’s no way the district could have shined without the positive contributions of the community. The city looked wonderful and the image no doubt left a positive impression on the evaluators. Education is reflection of a community, and Kansas City was well represented during the review.

On behalf of the Board of Directors and the district’s administration and staff, we thank you for your support.