Lindbergh School District residents should be proud of their school district, which just received the Depart-ment of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Distinction in Perfor-mance Award for the fourth consecutive year.
Earning the prestigious Distinction in Performance Award once or even twice is a feather in the cap of any school district, but capturing the honor all four years it has been offered is an accomplishment that in-dicates Lindbergh is operating on quite a different level than other school districts.
To qualify for the Distinction in Performance Award, school districts must meet 11 of 12 Missouri School Improvement Plan performance standards, which include Missouri Assess-ment Program test scores, ACT test scores, advanced course offerings, college placement, vocational placement, dropout rate and attendance rate.
And the standards keep increasing.
Only 157 school districts received the honor this year, while 177 districts earned the award last year.
In his announcement listing the school districts that received the Distinction in Performance Award this year, Commissioner of Education D. Kent King stated, “This award is unique and demanding, because it requires districts to demonstrate growth and progress across the board. Districts must show improvement or high performance at every level — elementary, middle and high school. It isn’t good enough to excel in a single area.”
And Lindbergh consistently has proved it doesn’t just excel in one area. Lindbergh School District officials for years have put into practice innovative, cutting-edge ideas and concepts that are light years ahead of what other school districts are doing academically, financially and ethically.
At the same time, however, Lindbergh officials haven’t forgotten such basic notions as only take what you need from taxpayers. After obtaining voter approval of a tax-rate increase in the early 1990s, the Board of Ed-ucation for years voluntarily rolled back a large part of that increase.
That fiscal stewardship has been rewarded time and time again at the ballot box.
In short, the Lindbergh School Dis-trict doesn’t have to brag about its accomplishments, but simply is the model school district that others aspire to be.
