Kentucky Department of Education : School Improvement

School Improvement

Published: 6/23/2017 3:14 PM

Continuous school improvement is an overarching goal for Kentucky schools to enhance educational opportunities and outcomes for all students. Use this page as a general resource providing updates and information to assist schools and districts in preparing students for next-generation learning, the work force and citizenship.

21st Century Community Learning Centers

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 recognizes that improved student achievement occurs when communities implement programs and strategies scientifically proven to be effective. The 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) program is an essential part of this initiative.

Alternative Education Programs

Our mission is to provide guidance and assistance to Kentucky Alternative Education programs and ensure continuous improvement in instruction, practices and curriculum to help all Kentucky students to be college and career ready.

Best Practices and Sustainability

The mission of the Best Practices web site is to promote practices that motivate, engage, and provide measurable results in school district achievement, processes and learning in schools throughout Kentucky.

Comprehensive Improvement Planning for Schools and Districts

School and district improvement efforts focus on student needs through a collaborative process involving all stakeholders to establish and address priority needs, district funding, and closing achievement gaps between identified subgroups of students. The Comprehensive School/District Improvement Plan’s address the Kentucky Board of Education’s Goals.

Digital Learning

Our mission is to provide evidence that digital learning has a positive impact on the preparation of all students in Kentucky schools to graduate college and career ready.

Focus Schools and Focus Districts

Improvement Planning and Consolidated Monitoring

The process of Improvement Planning in Kentucky is used as the means of determining how schools and districts will plan to ensure that all students are college and career ready.

Consolidated Monitoring provides a valuable tool for districts to not only ensure they are in compliance with state and federal regulations but also to focus on ways to develop more effective programs through collaboration and self evaluation.

Innovation and Non-Traditional Instruction

The Division of Innovation and Partner Engagement serves as the research and development arm of the Kentucky Department of Education and is charged with incubating learning innovations with the hope that these new approaches to learning could be scaled in the future.

LEAD - Kentucky National Institute for School Leadership (NISL)

KDE has been working with National Institute for School Leadership (NISL) to provide leadership training to school and district leaders. NISL is a thoroughly researched and fully tested program designed to assist schools and districts across the state with leadership development efforts.

Management Audit Process

KRS 158.780 and 158.785 require that the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) establish a program for management improvement services for those school districts which demonstrate such a critical lack of efficiency or effectiveness in governance or administration that state-mandated corrective action or state control of the district is required.

No Pass/No Drive Law

The No Pass/No Drive Law (KRS 159.051) was passed during the 2007 legislative session, and affects every public and private school in Kentucky (including home school students). The law says that schools will use academic and attendance data from the previous semester of the school year to determine whether 16 and 17-year-old students are compliant with the law.

Novice Reduction for Gap Closure

Novice Reduction for Gap Closure supports districts and schools as they implement systemic and sustainable improvement in order to reduce the number of students scoring at the novice level in Kentucky.

Priority Schools/Educational Recovery

As a condition of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Flexibility Waiver, the Kentucky Department of Education has identified Priority and Focus schools as referenced in 703 KAR 5:225. Priority Schools are low performing schools that have an overall score in the bottom five percent of overall scores by level for all schools that have failed to meet the Annual Measurable Objective (AMO) for the last three consecutive years.

Persistence to Graduation

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) provides a variety of supports to schools and districts to identify students who may be off-track for College and Career Readiness, promotion, and/or on-time graduation and provide interventions to support students until they earn a diploma.

Safe Schools

The Kentucky Department of Education provides various resources for schools, parents and districts, such as bullying prevention training, suicide prevention training, assistance with children experiencing bullying, and guidance on missing children in Kentucky and safe schools data collection in schools.

Title IV, Part A - Student Support and Academic Enrichment

Authorized under subpart 1 of Title IV, Part A of the ESEA, the Student Support and Academic Enrichment (SSAE) program is intended to help meet student support and academic enrichment goals by increasing the capacity of State educational agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies (LEAs), schools, and local communities.