As required by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), all school districts in the state must implement an accountability plan to demonstrate their school’s performance. The state of Colorado and the Department of Education passed SB 19-204, a Local Accountability System Grant in 2019, and the Student-Centered Accountability Program (S-CAP) was approved as one of eleven Local Accountability Systems that the state would financially support. In addition, CDE would collect information and data to be used for long-term improvements. Holyoke School District will participate in its sixth S-CAP site review this March.
S-CAP was organized by a group of rural Colorado superintendents and subsequently approved by CDE in June 2015. Its purpose is to create a more comprehensive system of accountability, looking at the “whole child.” S-CAP was approved by the state even before SB 19-204 was approved or funded by CDE and financially supported by legislation.
As a result of SB 19-204, S-CAP was a statewide recipient of the Local Accountability Systems Grant. The S-CAP schools listed in the grant included Buena Vista, Akron, Buffalo (Merino), East Otero (LaJunta), Hanover, Holyoke, Kit Carson, Laveta, Las Animas, MonteVista, West Grand, and Wiggins.
This grant money helped to enhance, improve and implement S-CAP, considered an alternate accountability system, which is carefully monitored by CDE. “This program is also intended to enable the state to learn from innovation in the field. Local accountability plans must meet all state, federal and program requirements that are covered by the state Unified Improvement Plan.” (cde.state.co.us)
Holyoke School Superintendent, Kyle Stumpf, explained that the purpose of S-CAP is that it “provides information about the whole child, many different aspects of learning and the learning environment to all teachers and administrators regarding our students, rather than just one test score given over two or three days for the limited tested subjects of Math, English Language Arts, and Science. In addition, S-CAP provides information at the end of the site visit, versus the state testing that is completed by April each year, but the district doesn’t obtain the results for four months in late August.”
Echoed by Holyoke Elementary Principal Andrea Kammer, “The S-CAP really embodies what we at Holyoke RE-1J believe in, the whole child; that students are not deemed successful based on a snapshot in time in the form of a standardized test. S-CAP allows us to show the successes of our students across a wide array of platforms and avenues.”
Angela Powell, Holyoke Jr.-Sr. High School Principal emphasized meeting every student’s needs by saying, “Our school district's mission statement is to ‘Graduate every student with the necessary knowledge, skill, and character to find success in life.’ S-CAP allows us to fulfill this mission for our students. Additionally, it ties directly to our work around our Graduate Profile and provides students a well-rounded education with many post-graduation opportunities that are never one size fits all.”
The S-CAP Colorado Website explains: “S-CAP was established to develop and maintain a cross-district collaborative approach to accountability and improvement. The S-CAP approach is timely, meaningful, considers the whole child, and engages community stakeholders in a continuous cycle of improvement and innovation supported by a network of peers.” (s-capcolorado.com)
Founded by superintendents in Buena Vista, Kit Carson, La Veta, Buffalo (Merino), and Monte Vista, S-CAP participation in 2023 has grown to 20 rural school districts. Two additional Colorado schools have completed the initial paperwork to join the collaborative group and hope to have their first site visit as early as next fall. Holyoke, along with Las Animas and Akron, joined the second year of S-CAP after reviewing the work the original districts started the year before.
In emphasizing the whole child, “S-CAP includes academic competence, thinking processes, and dispositions toward learning. S-CAP evidence of student success goes beyond state and local assessment to include student engagement and mindsets. S-CAP site reviews evaluate the capacity of the district’s systems to support student success, which is an essential function of accountability. Site reviews use collaborative and peer reviews as well as diverse sources of evidence to provide feedback to districts about the degrees to which their systems support students’ success.” (s-capcolorado.com)
The S-CAP Project's Aim of aligning accountability, improvement, and instruction for deeper learning in rural schools includes these Core Values:
Emphasize every student and the whole student
Accountability means continuous improvement
What gets measured and reported gets done
Accountability impact increases with local
stakeholder investment
Other schools around Colorado participating in S-CAP will come to the Holyoke schools to participate in their site review on March 4 and 5. Holyoke staff, students, and parents participate in surveys and discussions before and during the review. Information is gathered from all entities in an effort to provide a thorough evaluation, with survey results being compiled and validated by the University of Colorado - Denver.
“S-CAP looks at documents from the entire year and obtains feedback from K-12 parents and staff, as well as 4-12 grade students. Face-to-face Focus Groups also occur with students, staff, and parents,” stated Superintendent Stumpf.
Support documents and information center around the following: Curriculum and Instruction, Learning Climate, Leadership and Vision, Professional Learning, and Resource Allocation. This includes the Year at a Glance curriculum calendar, the district’s vision and goals, communication, learning communities, outcomes, professional development and implementation, families, facilities, and finances.
On Holyoke's two-day S-CAP site review, between 36 and 45 teachers and administrators from around Colorado will visit the Holyoke schools. These participants meet with parents, stakeholders, teachers, and students in addition to observing classrooms while instruction is taking place. They ask Holyoke students what they are learning in order to help evaluate both the elementary and junior-senior high. Participants will review hundreds of pages of documents, including supportive documents, plus analyze survey and testing results.
The S-CAP site review observers gather information starting at a very high viewpoint and spend time over the two days drilling in deeper and smaller until, at the end of the visit, they give valuable feedback to school administrators that was observed and supported in at least three different areas, survey results, focus groups classroom observations and document review. They discuss the district’s strengths and weaknesses pertaining to the district’s strategic priorities, academics, learning dispositions, and system supports. Highlights and recommendations are presented, with ratings being shared with administrators before the visiting group leaves the district at the end of the second day.
S-CAP is touted for giving immediate responses. School professionals, new and experienced, collaborate for one or two days and get feedback right then, unlike state testing results that are not received until four months after students take the assessments. That “timely, meaningful” guarantee of S-CAP is one reason schools are involved in this accountability process.
The benefits hoped for by the 20 rural schools currently participating in the S-CAP reviews have exceeded expectations. Stumpf explained, "One of the best unintended consequences of S-CAP is the connections and professional development opportunities that have come from teachers completing S-CAP site reviews. Often, our small rural districts only have one grade level or one content teacher; by having the opportunity to participate in a site review, teachers make connections with other grade and content teachers like theirs, see best practices in action, and observe how they implement new teaching practices learned from other professional development opportunities. These connections during site review continue when they return, allowing teachers to reach out, ask ongoing questions, bounce ideas off each other, and share resources that benefit students throughout Colorado. The other benefit of participating in S-CAP has been the improved relationships among Holyoke staff as they get to know each other even better after traveling to and from site visits around the state and discussing what they saw and sharing how others may view their classrooms, their teaching, their building and district.”
In addition, Stumpf continued, “Holyoke has allowed staff from other schools that participate in S-CAP to attend professional development that we have offered to our small staff, and our teachers have been invited to professional development that other districts are providing for their staff."
The Holyoke School District has received the advantages of participating in the S-CAP review: “With experience, protocols, and tools in place, S-CAP is helping rural Colorado schools partner together to meet the accountability requirements of CDE. In a cross-district collaborative approach to accountability and improvement, S-CAP colleagues and other stakeholders join together in a partnership to engage community stakeholders in a continuous cycle of improvement and innovation supported by an active network of peers in the field of education.” (s-capcoloraod.com)
“S-CAP evidence of student success goes beyond state and local assessment to include student engagement and mindsets. S-CAP site reviews evaluate the capacity of the district’s systems to support student success, which is an essential function of accountability. Site reviews use collaborative and peer reviews as well as diverse sources of evidence to provide feedback to districts about the degrees to which their systems support students’ success.” (s-capcoloraod.com)
Stumpf expressed the success of the S-CAP participation: “New and experienced teachers get the opportunity to connect, observe, and interact with colleagues, other peers, and other students around the state. It has led to conversations on how to streamline the district’s mission and vision to Board of Education goals, superintendent goals, principal goals, building goals, teacher goals, and student goals with strategic priorities from S-CAP site reviews that continually get measured.”
Principal Kammer expressed, “The Student-Centered Accountability Program (S-CAP) is a powerful and useful tool for our school district. We are able to get information to help us celebrate our achievements and grow in other areas to help our students succeed. When the district knows of an area we need to work on, we do all we can to make it better for our students, staff, and parents. S-CAP gives our stakeholders a voice and gives the district valuable feedback to use in making improvements. We appreciate all stakeholders who are willing to give their time to complete surveys, ask questions, and attend focus groups.”
Kammer also stated, “Through the S-CAP program, we are able to have other districts around the state visit our school and give us feedback on our four strategic priorities:fostering a positive, inclusive environment; enhancing professional communication and collaboration; establishing and implementing an aligned curriculum that optimizes instruction and ensures student learning; and engaging stakeholders as partners in the success of every student.”
“Not only does our staff grow from the information gathered during our S-CAP, but teachers are also invited to attend S-CAPs around the state. Being part of the process allows our teachers to see other teachers in various grade levels and settings,” Kammer shared.
Fifth-grade teacher Theresa Tharp explained, “When other schools come to Holyoke for the site review, they emphasize the great things we are already doing. By traveling to other towns, I get to see schools in action and witness new things we could implement to improve the Holyoke schools. I’ve enjoyed being involved with the S-CAP process and have learned something new at each visit. ”
Stefan Betley, Educational Technology Coordinator, shared his experience of attending S-CAP site reviews by saying, “Getting involved in S-CAP has made me better at my job. As I have observed other schools, I see where I can improve. As I participate in our site visits, I take the feedback and make changes in my craft. As I have gotten to network with other educators around the state, I have a much larger network of human resources to turn to when I need help.”
While the state of Colorado has accepted S-CAP as an “accountability” tool, it is Stumpf’s hope that the state would recognize the work that S-CAP and S-CAP districts are doing as a valid method to be used during an “accreditation” process. “At the very least, a menu of options could be used by districts to show CDE their local community areas of strength and areas that need to be improved while giving teachers, students, and parents a voice in determining what is being accomplished each year through surveys, focus groups feedback and after a site review,” Stumpf said.
Both administrators and staff at the Holyoke School District believe that they are one of the districts in Colorado that are implementing best practices, and appreciate that Holyoke teachers and administrators are allowed, through S-CAP, to showcase to others who teach similar content or work in similar settings with similar demographics. Stumpf passionately expressed, “This work is important work, not only in the accountability process, but hopefully soon, the accreditation process. We want to compare Holyoke with other diverse Colorado districts with similar students, content, settings, and demographics to give us a true perspective of how our district is doing. We would like CDE to recognize this in the accreditation process.”
Stumpf believes, “S-CAP allows for Holyoke and other rural districts that are doing things well throughout their district to share resources that are meeting the needs of students, teachers, and parents. I’m proud of the work our district is doing to meet the social/emotional health and academic needs of the whole child!”
by Kimberlee J. Bennett