Whitley County Intermediate Principal Brashear chosen to help determine Kentucky’s 5-star Accountability system

A Whitley County principal is one of the education stakeholders and policymakers, who are tasked with helping to determine Kentucky’s new five-star accountability system.

Whitley Central Intermediate School Principal Susan Brashear is part of a 23-person panel that is part of the Kentucky Department of Education’s Standard Setting Committee. Panelists will attend several meetings where they will work to determine scores for an overall rating that the schools will receive.

“I am really pleased that I will have the chance to represent and speak on behalf of my fellow principals. We know that there has to be measurable accountability for schools but my hope is that through the work of this panel, we can develop a common sense, effective approach that is an accurate and helpful reflection of what truly is happening in our schools and that we will get information from the process that can truly be used to improve education for all of the students in Kentucky,” Brashear said about how she felt about the opportunity.

Brashear has been an educator for 20 years, and just began her sixth year as principal at Whitley Central Intermediate School. She is a life-long resident of Whitley County and attended the Whitley County school system growing up.

Using data from the 2018-2019 school year, Kentucky’s accountability system will provide an overall rating for each school, district and the state ranging from one (the lowest) to five (the highest) stars. The star rating, along with other important education data, will be available on the Kentucky School Report Card, according to a release by the Kentucky Department of Education.

By the end of the process, the panel will recommend to Kentucky Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis cut scores for an overall rating that combines all indicators in Kentucky’s accountability system. The panel also will recommend cut scores for each indicator to allow reporting of school performance ranging from very low to very high (i.e., very low, low, medium, high, very high) on each indicator.