Parents, businesses can check school district’s ‘report card’

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) – Kentucky residents can now see how much schools spend per student and other financial expenditures with a new update of the Kentucky Department of Education’s School Report Card.

The report card also includes student proficiency results, accountability data and other information.

The report, which was released Tuesday, covers the 2018-19 school year, not the school year currently wrapping up.

It includes data on funding, grants, spending and taxes for each school district, as well as school-level spending per student.

It also looks at academic performance, the characteristics of the schools in Kentucky, what educational opportunities are available to students, and how prepared are students for what comes next, among other things.

The financial data is released later than the rest of the School Report Card domains to allow districts to use audited financial information in their calculations, which promotes greater accuracy of the district financial data.

A new feature this year is school districts had the opportunity to include a financial narrative on the Financial Summary tab of the report card.

This optional short narrative – 400 characters – gives parents, community members and researchers a better understanding of the district’s financial picture, which cannot be gathered by looking at the data alone.

The Kentucky School Report Card includes four components, all of which can be found KDE’s school data website at raisethebar.education.ky.gov.

Components include:

• Accountability information via the school report card
• Proficiency dashboard
• Student/Parent Portal
• Research data

Under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, each state in the U.S. was required to create an online school report card as part of its statewide accountability system. No new assessment data is part of this release.

For comprehensive instructions for how to access and navigate the School Report card, refer to the SRC Public Website User’s Guide.