TWO AREA SCHOOL DISTRICTS PREPARE FOR STATE EVALUATIONS

Two area school districts are scheduled for a statewide educational review this year.

State evaluation teams will visit Marquand-Zion and Woodland school districts in coming months to determine what progress the districts are making in selected areas of the Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP).

The MSIP review holds school districts accountable for maintaining and upgrading resources and performance standards.

Each district is evaluated on a five-year rotation, after which the team submits a report based on its findings to the State Board of Education. The board then classifies a district or makes administrative decisions based on a district's poor performance.

Four state classifications are available: unaccredited, provisionally accredited, accredited and accredited with distinction in performance.

MSIP teams will visit Marquand-Zion School District Dec. 8 and 9. In its previous review, the district received a provisionally-accredited rating.

The tiny school district, located in southeast Madison County, has an enrollment of about 246 students.

Pam Moyers, elementary school principal at Marquand-Zion, said efforts are underway to outperform the previous evaluation.

Administrators have been working to improve secondary school course offerings and new library listings, as well as the number of accredited teachers employed by the district.

New paint and repairs can be found in district buildings in order to meet state requirements for facilities and safety issues, Moyers said. Guidelines for an at-risk program in its second-year and a brand new gifted program also are being finalized.

"We've been working very hard," Moyers said. "Of course any school would like to be fully accredited. We want to be at least at provisionally-accredited when this is all over."

Moyers, a 21-year veteran at Marquand-Zion, said the school district also appears to be recovering from years of financial struggles.

In 1997, Marquand-Zion was one of only two districts in the state that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education identified as "financially stressed" after it ended the school year with an $8,500 deficit.

The designation would have allowed the school board to waive its Proposition C rollback -- levying up to an 85-cent tax increase without a vote of the people.

One month after receiving the designation, voters approved a 30-cent increase in their property taxes by eliminating 30 cents of the rollback from the Proposition C rollback. The increase to $3.05 per $100 assessed valuation kept the district from having to freeze salaries and administrative costs.

"Financially, we're in better shape now than what we've been probably in the last 10 years," Moyers said. "Over the last few years, we've watched very carefully how we spent our money."

The addition of a summer school program also improved the district's finances, which could mean an improved MSIP rating, she said.

"Summer school is a moneymaker for schools," said Moyers. "It helps those kids so much, but it also helps the district financially."

Woodland School District, which received an accredited rating after its last MSIP evaluation, also hopes to maintain or better its rating this time around.

The school district, which has an enrollment of about 960 students, is located in Bollinger County.

Jo Peukert, elementary school principal, said an administrative team has been working since last year to gather the necessary documentation and otherwise prepare for its evaluation in mid-April.

Peukert said team members are completing a self-study to determine what weaknesses the district should be working to improve. Goals and objectives are being drafted in areas such as curriculum, instruction, guidance and counseling, professional development and parental involvement, she said.

"We were having meetings as early as last year starting to get ready for that," said Peukert. She said they have been trying to identify and improve any weak areas.