MARSHALL — In his new role as Marshall Public School director of teaching and learning, Jeremy Williams told board members about Minnesota’s new North Star Accountability System and how it places equity and well-rounded educational opportunities at the center of school supports and recognition.

“Now, the statewide system is more about overall school improvement than just test scores,” Williams said at the work session meeting on Monday. “One of the big pieces the state is talking about is equity, which is looking at, for all staff and students, what do we need to do to even that playing field so that everyone has what they need to be successful. And it’s not giving everyone the same thing, but meeting those needs for everyone. We’ve been talking a lot about that at our back-to-school workshops.”

The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) recognized 526 public schools across the state as top performers in multiple areas of progress in school performance. Three Marshall Public School sites — Park Side, West Side and Marshall Middle School — were among those recognized as being in the top 5 percent for a variety of measures.

“Nine of those schools were in our geographic area,” Williams said.

The five key indicators that make up North Star are achievement and progress on reading tests over time, achievement and progress on math tests over time, progress toward English language proficiency, graduation rates and consistent attendance.

“The achievement is looking at the percent of students that were proficient in grade levels and in sub-groups that were proficient across grade levels. The progress toward achievement is talking about growth, so how many more kids move from ‘partially meets’ to ‘meets’ the standard and so forth,” Williams said.

Williams said graduation rates were measured at 4-year and 7-year marks. Attendance was measured by the percentage of students that were in attendance for at least 90 percent of the school days. The state also broke all those levels down to sub-groups, including free and reduced lunch, he said.

In addition to recognizing schools, Williams pointed out that 485 schools will receive varying levels of support over the next three years. Marshall is not one of them.

“Ten schools in our geographic area will receive some level of support,” he said. “Which stage you fall into if you’re one of the lower schools depends on what type of support you get from MDE, whether it’s support from the Regional Center of Excellence or support directly from the MDE. The higher the need, the stronger level of support you’d get.”

Williams said along with those schools that were in the bottom 5 percent, other ways to look at the indicators included: the top 5 percent which received recognition, those that meet and exceed state index/target and those below the state index/target.

“For the district as a whole, the biggest strengths we saw were progress toward English Language proficiency, which is an area we’ve spent a lot of time working on the past few years, our 7-year graduation rate was strong, academic progress in the area of math specifically and consistent attendance across the different (MPS) buildings,” Williams said.

Since Park Side students do not take the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, Williams said there was less data to look at, but that there were still highlights.

“They do look at progress toward EL proficiency and attendance and those numbers were high above the state average in those areas,” he said. “In fact, Park Side was recognized as being in the top 5 percent of the state in the area of multi-racial students in attendance.”

West Side was also recognized as a top school in two areas.

“They were recognized in the top 5 percent in two different areas: progress toward English Language proficiency and attendance for consistent attendance for EL learners,” Williams said. “So pretty exciting for West Side. We also exceeded the state and MPS averages in progress toward EL proficiency, in our reading progress area and in the area of attendance. They also had some strong test scores as well.”

At the middle school, Williams said there were strengths in math and reading achievement, math progress and attendance.

“MMS was also recognized in the top 5 percent in consistent attendance for Asian students and English Learners,” he said.

Marshall High School was above the state in four of the seven indicators. Compared to the state, Williams said MHS had particularly solid areas of strength in academic achievement in math, the 7-year graduation rate and consistent attendance.

MATEC exceeded the state and district average in the area of reading achievement. Williams said MATEC’s 7-year graduation rate was also more than 20 percent higher than the 4-year graduation rate.

The North Star system aligns with the requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the state’s World’s Best Workforce (WBWF) law, which focuses on supporting districts in meeting locally-determined goals.

The new system also reflects the state’s commitment to equity and an accelerated sense of urgency in confronting disparities experienced by students who have been traditionally underserved — students belonging to racial/ethnic student groups, English Learners, students receiving special education services and students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

“North Star places equity at the heart of our work to help all schools serve students well,” MDE Commissioner Brenda Cassellius said in a quote Williams shared with board members. “It points us toward the schools that will benefit from intensive support and schools that are positioned to offer lessons about how to help others improve. We will only realize higher outcomes for every student when we fully embrace new strategies to take on this difficult work.”