Boulder Valley was the only school district in the Denver metro area, as well as the largest school district statewide, to earn the state’s top performance rating based on preliminary accountability ratings released this week by the Colorado Department of Education.

Boulder Valley was one of 17 districts to receive the state’s accredited with distinction rating, while the St. Vrain Valley maintained the state’s second highest rating of accredited for a third year. Boulder Valley last received the top rating in 2018.

“It’s a great accomplishment for our district,” Boulder Valley Superintendent Rob Anderson said. “I’m really proud of our students and educators and school and district leaders, who have worked really hard to get to this point.”

For individual schools, every school in Boulder Valley — except two — earned the state’s highest rating. All St. Vrain Valley schools also were in the top two rating categories, with just one exception.

The ratings are based mainly on achievement on statewide tests, as well as on growth in the scores from year to year on the language arts and math tests. At high schools, the ratings include graduation and dropout rates and scores on the PSAT and SAT.

The school ratings are, from lowest to highest: turnaround, priority improvement, improvement and performance. Schools in the lowest two categories face state intervention if they don’t improve after five consecutive years. During the pandemic, most schools kept their 2019 ratings and the five-year “accountability clock” was paused. The state started it up again with last year’s ratings.

Boulder Valley had one school, Columbine Elementary in Boulder, go on the accountability clock this year after its rating dropped two levels to priority improvement. Boulder High, the other district school not in the state’s highest category, received an improvement designation for a second year because of continued low participation on state tests.

Anderson said Boulder High is looking at improvements to record keeping to better document student opt outs, as well as its make up test options, to try to improve its participation rate. Students whose parents opt them out don’t count against the participation rate, but “unexcused” opt outs do.

Four Boulder Valley schools improved their ratings from the previous year. Boulder’s New Vista High School, which previously had its rating reduced because of low participation, improved participation and now has a performance rating. Boulder’s Arapahoe Ridge High School, Lafayette’s Angevine Middle and Broomfield Heights Middle all boosted their ratings to performance.

Boulder Valley school board member Alex Medler, during Tuesday’s school board meeting, praised the effort it takes for a large school district with students from a variety of backgrounds to have almost all of its schools rated in the top category. About 25% of the district’s students qualify for federally subsidized lunches, a measure of poverty.

“Yes, we are a great district, but we’re also prioritizing student equity and student achievement in a way that is making a great difference,” he said.

An online school, Boulder Universal, and the district’s two tiny mountain schools, Gold Hill Elementary and Jamestown Elementary, didn’t have enough test data for the state to assign a rating.

In St. Vrain Valley, Deputy Superintendent Jackie Kapushion said the district is pleased that 98% of its schools are in the two highest rating categories. She said the district works with school principals in August and September to “dig into the data and understand where their successes lie and where there are opportunities for increased student achievement.”

School leaders and teachers, she added, will continue to use a wide range of student achievement data, not just statewide test scores, to improve instruction.

“We’re always looking to have a full picture,” she said.

Three of the district’s schools improved their ratings from the previous year, with Frederick High and Longmont High moving up to performance and Timberline PK-8 up to improvement.

Five schools — Aspen Ridge Charter, Burlington Elementary, Thunder Valley PK-8, Mountain View Elementary and Northridge Elementary — dropped a level from performance to improvement. Sunset Middle, in Longmont, also dropped to a priority improvement rating, which will start the state’s accountability clock.

One school, St. Vrain Community Montessori, didn’t have enough test data for the state to assign a rating. District officials noted the charter school’s Montessori philosophy values other forms of assessment over standardized tests, leading to a high number of parents opting out students.

The ratings are preliminary, and districts can contest the ratings before they’re finalized later this year. St. Vrain Valley plans to appeal the ratings for three schools, including Sunset Middle, district officials said.

Changes also may be on their way for the state’s accountability system, which has been criticized by local education leaders. A 2023 state law created a 26-person task force to study “academic opportunities, inequities, promising practices in schools and improvements to the accountability and accreditation system.”

Both Anderson and St. Vrain Valley Superintendent Don Haddad are serving on the task force, which is expected to deliver recommendations to the state Legislature and state Board of Education in November.

“There are going to be some great recommendations that will make the accountability system better,” Anderson said. “We want to preserve accountability in a way that’s fair and consistent and understands the unique challenges of school districts in Colorado.”

Concerns that Anderson, Haddad and others have raised include that the system is really measuring poverty, not school quality, and places schools with high poverty rates at a disadvantage. Achievement data also is less accurate for small schools and districts, with about 85% of the state’s districts falling into that category.

Haddad said the current system doesn’t allow for accurate comparisons among districts or schools. He noted districts with lower graduation requirements but higher graduation rates aren’t penalized — essentially “getting more points for having less expectations of their students.” And, he said, some districts or schools may see their ratings spike simply because more students opted out of the tests.

“When you have a lot of opt outs and get a higher rating, you don’t have a total picture of the achievement of all the students,” he said.

He said the flaws have created a “pretty disingenuous system.”

“It’s time for it to change so we can get a clear picture of how students are doing, how schools are doing, how districts are doing and how the state is doing,” he said.