There will be no Oklahoma School report cards for the current year.
The State Board of Education voted unanimously on Thursday to suspend them for one year because of upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic. State testing factors heavily into the A–F report cards and is set to go on, but all of the data that goes into them will somehow be affected.
Deputy Superintendent of Assessment and Accountability Maria Harris told the board, for example, students didn’t test last year because of a federal waiver. Now, there’s no way to measure academic growth over the past year.
"Well, what makes that tool so useful is where it is consistent over time and it is reliable and the calculations and the completeness of the data that we have. And we are just not going to have the same level of data collected to be able to report," Harris said.
Board member Carlisha Williams Bradley said the situation is similar to when the state changed school accountability systems starting in the 2017 school year.
"We had to set a new baseline, and unfortunately a pandemic has allowed for us to have to set another baseline to have valid data to truly compare what’s happening form year to year," Williams Bradley said.
Other indicators that factor into school report cards, like absenteeism, will also have data affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The school report cards would return in fall 2022.