News Release - U.S. Department of Education allows Colorado to waive federal accountability requirement

April 22, 2021

U.S. Department of Education allows Colorado to waive federal accountability requirement

DENVER -- The Colorado Department of Education’s request for a waiver from federally required accountability, including identifying schools for support and related reporting for the 2020-21 school year, was accepted by the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday.

With this waiver, Colorado will not be required to implement and report the results of its federal accountability system using assessment results from the 2020-21 school year and will not be required to identify schools for support. The waiver also explicitly includes waiving the requirement for 95% of students to participate in assessments.   

Colorado will be required to resume school identification in the fall of 2022 and ensure transparency to parents and the public, including publicly reporting the percentage of students not assessed, disaggregated by student subgroups.  

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to annually identify schools for support based on performance of all students and specific disaggregated groups, based on five indicators: (1) academic achievement and growth in English language arts and mathematics, (2) English language proficiency for English learners, (3) graduation rates, and (4) school quality or student success.

In March, the state legislature passed House Bill 21-1161 and Gov. Polis signed the legislation that paused the state accountability system for 2021-22. 

Read the letter from the U.S. Department of Education here.

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