State of Montana Newsroom
Superintendent Arntzen Proudly Announces Approval to Montana’s Rigorous Action Plan
HELENA – Superintendent Arntzen is proud to announce that the United States Department of Education approved Montana’s amendment to its Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Plan for Rigorous Action. The approved amendment will allow for flexibility to meet the needs of each individual school that qualifies for Rigorous Action.
“This amendment reflects the Montana promise of providing educational excellence to our students,” said Superintendent Elsie Arntzen. “My focus is to provide our schools with the necessary tools for our children to achieve academic success. I appreciate the Department of Education for approving this amendment.”
Schools enter Rigorous Action when identified as Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) under ESSA and have not:
- Made adequate progress in exiting the lowest performing 5% of Title I Schools
- Shown growth in ELA (reading) and Math
- Shown improvement in their Comprehensive needs assessment
Schools identified for CSI meet one or more of the following criteria:
- Lowest performing 5% of all Title I schools in the state;
- High school graduation rate less than 67%;
- Consistently underperforming student groups.
The goal of the amendment is to have schools out of the bottom 5% within seven years of being identified as CSI.
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