The committee reviewed the August Academic Dashboard.  In enrollment, the school is currently under-enrolled by 3 students and will be calling students from the waitlist to fill the seats. Demographic data for the school is very similar to last year's, and the school also saw very low attrition rates among its student population. Of the students who left, two transferred to Sabis and cited the high school program as a motivation. The committee discussed this concern and decided that Bill will schedule a parent focus group to get paretn input and share Springfield Prep's plan to help with high school placement. Bill will also talk to other K-8 charter schools for ideas about how they support high school placement. Meghan noted that the school's attendance rate is 95%, despite a number of half days due to heat which decreased attendance. Regarding discipline, there has  been one out of school suspension and no in school suspensions so far this year.

The committee discussed the state's new accountability system under the "Every Student Succeeds Act". Bill noted that Springfield Prep will not get an accountability rating this year because it is the school's first year with MCAS data and a lot of the metrics are based on growth and targets set from the previous year’s data. The new accountability system will include EL performance and chronic absenteeism data, which the former system did not include.  The performance of subgroups, including a new group of the lowest performing students, will be reported publicly but not part of the accountability determination. 

The committee discussed upcoming changes to the Academic Dashboard, including the tracking of the cohort of lowest performing students, a more in-depth look at chronic absenteeism, and the implementation of an EL benchmark and tracking system.

The committee discussed a communication strategy for sharing out the school's 2018 performance data. Committee members suggested the school tie its messaging of the data to the school's purpose of providing a world-class education for all regardless of background, and highlighted the fact that SPCS students are among the highest performing students in the state due to the school's structure, staff training and collaboration, and high expectations for students.