School performance results released by IA Dept. of Education

   This report includes school climate indicator; district falls short on student emotional safety, student-student relationships

HARLAN -- A new online report released by the Iowa Department of Education shows how public schools perform in a new accountability system that meets the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a federal education law that replaced the No Child Left Behind Act.
    The Harlan Community Schools ranks at, near or above the state average in the accountability measures detailed in the report, but also shows areas that may need improvement -- in particular student climate relating to emotional safety and student-student relationships, actually a common theme among public school districts statewide, according to the numbers.
    The new reports, called the Iowa School Performance Profiles, include each school’s scores on a set of accountability measures.  The reports display scores based on a school’s overall performance, as well as the performance of subgroups of students such as children from low-income backgrounds.
    The accountability measures include a unique indicator of school climate based on student surveys of engagement, safety and overall learning environment conditions called Conditions of Learning.
    The other measures are student participation on state assessments, academic achievement, student academic growth, graduation rate, and progress in achieving English language proficiency.  
    For example, Harlan Community scores slightly higher than state average on reading and math growth as compared to its peers, but HCS students are right near state average for reading and math achievement on state assessments (see table on front page).  A postsecondary readiness measure will be added in 2019.