001Welcome USD264 staff, uh, stakeholders, parents, uh, students, and community members, and anyone watching on YouTube. We want to just welcome you to, uh, our Clearwater Clarity for May 2025, which is volume 19. Also excited about the end of the school year, uh, as we're coming to a close. We're going to honor and celebrate, uh, our staff that are retiring and moving on from USD264 here as we finish out the year. And then also excited about welcoming the new staff that will be coming into 264 uh, next year for our 2526 school year. So, be look out on be on the lookout at our social media page on Facebook. Um, and we'll be start posting some of our new certified staff members uh with some background information and what they'll be teaching for us next year.
002So, we're excited about that. Uh, today, what are we going to talk about? We're going to talk about accreditation. Uh, so accreditation is something that we have to go through uh in the state of Kansas and all across the United States to make sure that you're an accredited school to receive funding. Um so we have KISSA which is the Kansas education systems of accreditation uh which the state of Kansas accredits a little over 400 systems uh across the state of Kansas which are public schools, private schools and dascese schools um as well. Uh so we're going to look at what are we going to do for the 2526 school year which aligns with our strategic plan to really focus on how are we going to increase uh student achievement because ultimately that's the goal of
003accreditation and that's been the goal with the three different iterations of accreditation over the last 25 years. So, starting back uh in the early 2000s, we had No Child Left Behind, which was a federal law enacted by um at that time, President Bush, which said by 2012, 100% of students will be proficient in reading and math. And that was a really good goal. It started off uh like gang busters and and school districts did an amazing job, especially in Kansas, of increasing those scores. And we got to the point where around 2009 2010, realizing that getting to 100% proficient was just unattainable. And so at that time, federal law paused and made sure we just maintained those proficiency levels um where we were at which was around 90% of students uh especially across the state
004of Kansas. Then in around 2014, as that law expired for No Child Left Behind, um the ESSA law, which is elementary and secondary students act came into be and it let each state write their own accreditation plan. And so in doing that, the state of Kansas went with KSA 1.0. At that point in time, you were in a five-year cycle. And so, you would write a goal around one of the four Rs, rigors, relevance, relationships, and responsive culture. Write a goal. You would create some data based on a needs assessment. And then you would uh present it to a team, an outside uh visitation team. That team would then make a recommendation if you were accredited or not. And while that did help uh with some of the processes in Kansas, it did not really
005focus in attack on some of our student outcomes or increasing student achievement. uh which is now kind of a pronounced factor that our legislature would like for us to look at. So now as we go into the reiteration of KISSA for two KISSA 2.0 is we have three main components that we're going to have to look at and we're going to have to look at number one we're going to have to write an action plan that does increase student outcomes of uh learning on the state assessment. So increase our student achievement. Second is make sure that we're in compliance with all uh federal laws and state laws. and then make sure we're meeting all regulations, things like uh fire drills, things along the lines of uh all students have an individual plan of study, that
006students are u provided with an opportunity to take the ACT uh for free each year, things like that that we're going to have to make sure that we can provide our students uh to prepare them for their life after school here at Clearwater High School. And so KISSA 2.0 is where we're at. And so some of the things to set KISSA 2.0 apart is how are we going to do this? So there's four fundamentals and those fundamentals uh center around different activities such as structured literacy and high quality instruction and we're able to select one of those fundamentals and some lead measures to really talk about how we are going to be able to change uh some of the actions that we do at school that will increase student um achievement. And in doing that
007we also have to set measures of progress which give us a sixmonth and a one-year target. So our uh KISSA accreditation day was March 26th of 2025. So we have to and we're currently in the process of writing our goals and our action plan, but we are in the process of uh creating those six-month and one-year targets and we're going to have those due on March 26, 2026. So we have a representative from KSD that we meet with. Uh we share that information. We provide updates as to our work towards that. And then ultimately a year from now, we'll turn in our data to support the um reaching of our goals. The state will then review the data along with our action plan plus our new action plan that we're going to have to write
008with a new goal for the next for the following year. And we'll continue going down this process until we feel like we're until we're reaching certain goals of um student achievement on the state assessment scores. So when are we going to do this? We have to submit our current plan to the state by May 26th. We'll have our six-month check-in in September, our one-year update next May. And then we'll submit a new plan and new goal and continue that uh path of growth. And then we'll start measuring outcomes. So, we'll start using student assessment data in the 2627 school year to start measuring the effectiveness of those goals. And then we're going to be able to have the opportunity to make sure that we're continuing to improve those goals or we're meeting certain thresholds of
009the amount of students in levels uh three and four. So, as we do this, we're really looking at our goal is probably going to be centered around balanced assessments and making sure that we're providing good assessments for our students that are focused on um good screening data like FastBridge, good formative assessment data, which is kind of a daily check for understanding, and then good summitive data or benchmark assessments, which would be uh what we'd be used to as like uh unit test or um semester test and finals, things like that. and using all of that data to make sure that we're teaching um our students at the level we need them to be taught. So, as we finish, we just want to make sure that everyone's updated and and has some communication about what accreditation
010is in Kansas now and what specifically accreditation looks like for USD264. So, we're excited about finishing up this year and getting next year started and start working on some of that balanced assessment work that we're going to focus on and being that one degree more, making sure that we're coming to work each day, turning it up one degree more for our students. um that way they are getting the full opportunities to be the most successful that they can be. As always, I always open up to be able to visit and communicate about any questions that you may have. If you want to schedule a meeting, call the office with the number listed here and we'll schedule a meeting to visit. If not, you can always send me an email or uh hit me up on
011social media. So again, thank you and we're looking forward to getting the opportunity to continue serving Clearwater and looking forward to finishing up this school year.