Each year, the Colorado Department of Education accredits 183 districts, ranking them on academic growth, achievement and other indicators. The top rating is “Accredited with Distinction.” This year, just 9% of districts earned that honor, including the Boulder Valley School District for the second year in a row.
Since the current accreditation system launched in 2009, BVSD has reached the top rating three times prior to 2025, even while grappling with a persistent achievement gap.
That gap, documented repeatedly in test scores, is not new. A 2009 budget report noted: “The trends over time show that these targeted efforts are working and the gap is closing; however, the CDE accreditation process for Boulder Valley School District found that while progress is being made on closing achievement gaps for Latinos, the rate of change is not sufficient.”
BVSD’s strategic plan, “All Together for All Students,” centers on closing that gap, and it appears to be working on at least some fronts, according to Superintendent Rob Anderson.
“I am most proud of the growth that many of our sub-groups have shown in reading,” he said. “Our Free and Reduced Lunch students [an indicator of poverty] and multilingual learners have the highest median growth percentile of any school district on the Front Range.”
District leaders say BVSD’s relative wealth of resources puts it in a strong position to improve on these metrics. In 2017, BVSD had the widest achievement gap in Colorado, and the latest 2025 data show Hispanic students’ growth scores remain 7% lower in elementary schools and 6% lower in middle schools than their peers.
While the district cannot eliminate language barriers, poverty , and other factors that impact learning, it can direct more money to schools serving students who fall behind. Its weighted budgeting system gives extra per-pupil funding for students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and English language learning support. High-needs schools in BVSD receive an extra $500 to $750 per student, which can pay for math and reading interventionists, after-school tutors, paraeducators, culturally specific library books and specialized curricula.
Columbine finding its footing
Individual school ratings roll up into the district’s overall score. Colorado’s spectrum runs from Turnaround (red) to Performance (green), providing a snapshot of each school’s academic health. Rankings and test scores fluctuate year to year across the district. But while most schools remain within the Performance band, higher-needs schools tend to swing more dramatically.
District leaders say these schools can be sensitive to factors such as changing student populations, leadership changes and accountability systems, all of which can amplify small differences. Communications Director Randy Barber said that can often lead to ratings that appear inconsistent from year to year.
“Even small shifts in enrollment, such as an increase in students new to English or higher student mobility, can significantly impact averages,” he said in an email. “Growth scores, while more of an equitable representation, can also swing widely in these contexts. A relatively small group of students performing above or below expectations can shift a school’s overall rating, especially in schools with fewer tested students.”
For high-needs schools like Columbine Elementary, a Title I school with 68% minority and 64% economically disadvantaged students, differentiated funding is a crucial support. Boulder Reporting Lab calculated that Columbine received more than $200,000 from that fund in 2024 and has benefited from it since the program began in 2021. Performance levels rose to the green band for four years after nearly slipping into Turnaround territory in 2017, dropped to a seven-year low in 2024, and are now rebounding in 2025.
After two years of positive results, Columbine dropped sharply into “Priority Improvement” (orange). Preliminary 2025 results show it bumping back up to Improvement (yellow).
Since 2022, Columbine and three other Title I schools have been required to follow state-mandated improvement plans. The process, intended to include parent and staff input, focused heavily on generating student data for teachers to adjust instruction. The approach — called “data-driven instruction” — came from the University of Virginia. BVSD credits it with such strong results that it’s now being used across the district.
In adopting UVA’s model, Columbine moved away from the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education at CU Boulder, which had helped integrate Literacy Squared, a bilingual literacy network. That shift angered some in the school community who felt the culture was moving back toward test-driven methods.
An anonymous group of Columbine parents and teachers sent a letter to Boulder Reporting Lab in 2024, raising concerns about leadership changes and program shifts. They claimed 14 teachers had left or been pushed out over three years, and students were being tested so often that parents feared it cut into learning.
A Title VI complaint filed with the state’s Office of Civil Rights raised similar issues. Investigators found two violations: lack of clarity about the new dual-language program and inadequate translation services at parent meetings, which are required by law.
A 2024 state survey showed improvements in family engagement since 2022 and slight gains in job satisfaction among staff. But teachers also reported feeling excluded from the improvement plan process — a long-standing concern, according to the survey.
Casey minority scores decline
The only school to drop in ranking this year was Casey Middle, a diverse dual-language school with 56% minority enrollment and 57% economically disadvantaged students.
Casey was in the yellow for years. But when rankings resumed after the pandemic in 2022, the school slipped into Priority Improvement (orange). That triggered a state-mandated improvement plan and the hiring of a new principal, Dr. Bryant Shaw. Shaw has been praised for his leadership in getting the school back on track. The 2024 TLCC teacher survey indicates staff are broadly satisfied, citing strong community engagement and efforts to protect staff time. Casey had rebounded to Performance (green) by 2024.
Yet the data show shifting disparities. From 2021 to 2024, non-minority student growth scores jumped about 12 points, the school’s biggest gain. Minority student growth scores, meanwhile, dropped about 11 points. Achievement scores for minority students have fallen almost every year since 2021, with only a slight uptick in 2024.
Acknowledging a need for improvement at the middle school level, BVSD has recently stepped up support. At Casey, dual-language programming expanded this year, with full-time staff and new course offerings. The district is also adding new technical education and career readiness opportunities for middle school students.
I’d love to see this article start with schools’ overall (average) performance and then discuss variability/equity concerns. To present gaps between demographic groups without the context of overall performance feels like there’s a foundation missing.