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Each measure in a profile, both core academic outcomes and elevating indicators, is assigned a performance level.

• These levels are shown using both a name and a color, making it easier to quickly understand performance at a glance:

  • Exemplary - Highest levels of performance
  • Approaching Exemplary - Strong performance
  • Commendable - Typical or average performance
  • Developing - Below average performance
  • Comprehensive - Low performance
  • Automatic Comprehensive - Exceptionally low performance (lowest 3–5% in the state)

These levels help quickly identify strengths and highlight areas that may need attention.

• Each indicator can be considered on its own.

  Looking at individual measures helps answer questions like:

  • Where is the school performing strongly?
  • Where might students need more support?

This step helps identify specific strengths to build on and areas to improve.

The core academic indicators (proficiency, growth, and graduation rate) form the foundation of the profile.

• In general:

  • A school’s core performance reflects its strongest core indicator.
• However, low performance also matters:
  • If any core indicator is Comprehensive (orange), the overall core performance is adjusted down one level.
  • If any core indicator is Automatic Comprehensive (red), the entire profile is Comprehensive, reflecting an urgent need for improvement.

This ensures that strong performance in one area does not mask serious challenges in another.

• Elevating indicators (like attendance, climate survey participation, and English learner progress) provide additional insight into school conditions.

  • A school can only elevate one level.
  • Elevation happens when elevating indicators are stronger than core performance.
  • Schools with the highest performance (Exemplary) or urgent needs (Automatic Comprehensive) do not elevate.
• How elevation works (simplified):
  • To reach higher levels (Exemplary or Approaching Exemplary), schools need multiple Exemplary elevating indicators.
  • To move into mid-levels (Commendable or Developing), schools may elevate with a combination of strong elevating indicators (Exemplary and Approaching Exemplary).

These elevation requirements ensure strong performance in areas that support student success. Together, these measures help identify patterns, highlight priorities, and guide next steps.

A Profile of Performance also looks at how distinct groups of students are performing.

• This helps answer:

  • Are all students experiencing success?
  • Are there gaps between groups?
• Important:
  • Some performance variation is expected.
  • However, if any student group has Comprehensive performance, the overall school performance cannot be higher than Commendable.

This ensures that improvement efforts focus on all students, not just overall averages.

Profiles are designed to support a strengths-based approach to improvement.

• In general, schools aim to:

  • Build on their strongest areas
  • Improve lower-performing indicators
  • Reduce gaps between student groups
  • Support growth across all measures

There is no single “right” way to improve. The best approach depends on each school’s context — but the profile helps identify where to start. The Statewide Framework for Success provides a shared process to support this work.

• School improvement is an ongoing cycle of inquiry: a process schools use to understand performance and take action. This cycle includes three connected phases:

  • Identify and Plan
    Understand strengths and areas for growth and set priorities
  • Implement and Monitor
    Put strategies into action and track progress
  • Examine and Reflect
    Review results, learn from what is working, and adjust

THIS CYCLE REPEATS OVER TIME, SUPPORTING CONTINUOUS LEARNING AND IMPROVEMENT.

• Improvement efforts focus on key areas that have the greatest impact on student outcomes:

  • Governance
    Local boards of education help guide improvement by setting vision and priorities and aligning resources to support student success.
  • Leadership
    Leaders build collective capacity, foster collaboration, and ensure improvement efforts are implemented effectively.
  • Instruction
    Instruction directly impacts student learning through evidence-based, data-informed teaching practices that respond to student needs.

These levers help schools turn plans into meaningful changes in teaching and learning.

• Strong outcomes are supported by the conditions within a school. In the Statewide Framework for Success, these are described as three key domains: Culture, Systems, and Learning.

  • Culture
    Culture reflects a school’s efforts to create a student-centered environment where adults build positive, unconditional relationships with students, families, and staff, and ensure equitable access to inclusive, engaging, and culturally responsive learning opportunities.
  • Systems
    A systems approach recognizes the complexity of a school or district and how interconnected parts work together. Effective systems align structures, processes, and resources to keep student success at the center of all improvement efforts.
  • Learning
    Learning reflects a school’s efforts to create a data-driven environment grounded in evidence-based, inclusive, and culturally responsive practices. This supports continuous growth and ongoing reflection and adaptation.