News Release - District and School Preliminary Frameworks released after two-year pause

Sept. 8, 2022

District and School Preliminary Frameworks released after two-year pause

DENVER - The Colorado Department of Education today released the 2022 preliminary transitional performance framework ratings for schools and districts after a two-year pause.

The 2022-23 ratings can be found on the Performance Frameworks Results webpage.

Although the release of the preliminary information is a crucial step in the state's required accountability process, it is important to understand that today’s ratings are preliminary and not final because some districts will participate in the state's request to reconsider process. In some cases, districts have additional information that could result in a change to their final rating, pending state board approval. Additionally, this year’s transitional framework system will feature some temporary changes due to the two-year pause. 

“I am pleased that the state will once again release preliminary ratings that will provide students, families and the community a deeper understanding of the performance of their schools,” said Katy Anthes, commissioner of education. 

“I know our educators and families have been working hard to help our students make up for the lost learning opportunities in the pandemic. The frameworks demonstrate the same thing we saw with our assessment results – that we still have work to do to rebuild following the pandemic. This is a transitional year with the process working a little bit differently, but the information in our frameworks is still critical because it helps us know where to target additional resources and support for students who need it the most.”

The performance frameworks, part of the state’s accountability system, are calculated using statewide data, including academic growth, academic achievement  and postsecondary and workforce readiness data (e.g., graduation, dropout, matriculation rates). 

Typically, school and district frameworks are released every year and are used to accredit school districts and assign school plan types. However, the pandemic caused the state to pause the calculation and release of performance frameworks for two school years, 2020-21 and 2021-22.

For both those years, school plan types were rolled over from the 2019-20 school year, except for those that went through the request to reconsider process last year and improved their ratings. Temporary changes to the transitional frameworks due to the two-year pause will mean some schools and districts will not automatically advance on the accountability clock, three-year frameworks won’t be calculated due to the lack of consecutive years of data and there is an addition of a new growth participation rate.

Read an overview of the state's accountability process.

Final ratings for districts and schools that do not participate in the request to reconsider process will be adopted by the State Board of Education in November. The ratings for the remaining schools and districts will be adopted by the state board in December.

Results for 2022-23 preliminary ratings

The top three plan types – Distinction, Performance and Improvement – had an overall decline when compared with the ratings from 2021. Conversely, the bottom two plan types - Priority Improvement and Turnaround – saw an increase.  Note that this trend may change to some degree after the request to reconsider process.

Additionally, more schools and districts received the designation of Insufficient State Data, which occurs when there is not enough reportable data for a school or district. This year, this is occurring because the department cannot run three-year frameworks which impacts smaller systems. Some schools and districts also experienced low participation on state tests.

District Summary