By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays school district is preparing to send its first accreditation report to the state under a new accreditation system.

In the past, schools were measured based upon state assessment scores in reading and math.

Beginning this year, Kansas districts are being measured on student social and emotion growth, kindergarten readiness, individual plans of study, civic engagement, graduation rates and post-secondary success.

Shanna Dinkel, assistant superintendent, addressed the district’s graduation rates and post-secondary success rates with the board at its meeting on Monday.

The district’s five-year graduation average from 2011 to 2015 was 87 percent. The state’s goal is to get all districts to a 95 percent graduation rate.

Seventy-one percent of jobs in the state by 2020 will require a college or technical degrees or some type of post-secondary certificate, according to a Georgetown University Public Policy Institute study. Therefore, the state has set a goal for districts to have 70 percent to 75 percent of their students meet these goals.

Although the state has set goals for all districts, each district will be measured on its improvement, Superintendent John Thissen said.

The district’s five-year effectiveness rate toward this goal was 47 percent. These numbers do not include students who go directly to work in family businesses such as farms, those who enter the military or those who work in apprenticeships.

The 47 percent post-secondary effectiveness rate was within the effectiveness rate the state would expect considering a number of risk factors experienced by Hays students.

The most significant risk factor is coming from a low-income family. Thissen said on the KAYS Morning Show Tuesday the district needs to work with low-income students to show them there are ways they can go on to post-secondary education and be successful.

The district has approved a new program to start this fall called JAG-K that works with students with risk factors for dropping out of high school to help them earn their high school degrees and set and achieve post-secondary goals.

Dinkel also noted as the sponsoring district for the area’s special education cooperative, the district draws more special education students. The district works to help these students be successful, but these students are also counted in the district’s graduation rates and post-secondary success rates.

Students who enroll in the Learning Center also affect the Hays High graduation numbers. Although the students might successfully earn a high school diploma, they are not counted toward a positive graduation rate if they don’t graduate with their diploma within four years. GED recipients are also not counted as graduates.

On the other end of the education spectrum, parents of kindergarteners will be seeing a change this fall. All parents will be asked to complete surveys that assess their children’s developmental levels as they enter kindergarten. This confidential information will be used to help develop strategies to help the students build skills in kindergarten. The district will also use the data to develop strategies within the community to help prepare children for kindergarten.

In other business, the board voted to approve the workbook/material fees for students at $90 for the upcoming school year. This is the same as the fee was for 2017-18. The school calendar, school board meeting dates and a renewal of the Kansas Association of School Boards membership were also approved.