PARACHUTE – Colorado School Accountability Reports are compiled yearly, as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, as a way to monitor individual schools’ progress from year to year.The information compiled covers everything from how many students were suspended during the year, the division and spending of allocated funds, and how the students did on state assessment tests such as the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP). According to Garfield School District 16 assistant superintendent Ken Haptonstall, the information provided is something that he sees more often than once per year.”When you put (CSARs) out, there is value in them and it’s definitely a benefit to the public,” Haptonstall said. “But this is already information we have. I am looking at this all year long anyway.”When the CSARs were released in the first week of December, one particular area of much interest for parents, as well as administrators, was the overall academic achievement of schools and the academic growth of students. But Haptonstall wasn’t surprised when the information said District 16 remained relatively stable from the previous year.”We had a little gain,” Haptonstall said. “This year, with the things we are doing, we will see some big improvements next year.”Overall, the district remained stable. However, Grand Valley High School rose from average in 2005-06 on academic growth of students, to high for the 2006-07 school year. That was a big boost for first-year assistant superintendent Haptonstall.”Last year the high school worked considerably on the area of writing,” Haptonstall said. “Along with some of the other efforts of the staff and different teaching practices, the effort paid off there.”The only point of concern for Haptonstall was the decline in academic growth of students at St John Middle School. But Haptonstall said that after looking over the data, it wasn’t as big a concern as he first thought.He indicated that on the scale used to determine the status of academic student growth, the middle school only missed remaining stable by 2/100 of one point. That’s something that he expects to be raised this year.”The middle school was very close to being stable,” Haptonstall said. “We just need to refocus. I’m confident that we should be increasing next year at all the schools.”Contact John Gardner: 384-9114jgardner@postindependent.comPost Independent, Glenwood Springs, Colorado CO