By Marshall Griffin, St. Louis Public Radio
Jefferson City, MO – Missouri's annual performance report for K-12 schools shows more schools failing to meet academic and financial benchmarks that help determine accreditation.
Twelve of the state's school districts met the minimum number of 9 standards last year, but did not do so this year. Three of those 12 districts - Hazelwood, Ferguson-Florissant, and University City - are in St. Louis. Another, Hickman Mills, is in Kansas City, and the rest are in rural areas.
But the districts are not in danger of losing their accreditation, said Margie Van Deven, with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
"It's preliminary data, and it could just mean at this point that there are issues with the data what it does mean is we need to start paying attention to what is occurring at that district right now," she said. "They become a district that we target for some areas of improvement. We send in a regional school improvement team, the area supervisor works with them, the regional instructional improvement staff members work with them."
St. Louis City and Riverview Gardens, the state's two unaccredited districts, met 5 out of 14 required standards, up from 3 for both districts last year. The minimum number for accreditation, though, is nine.