By CHUCK MASON

Academic achievement was one accomplishment the superintendent of Warren County Public Schools touted Tuesday in his “State of the District” talk at Greenwood High School.

Superintendent Rob Clayton explained that although the state “Unbridled Learning” program results for this year can’t be compared to last year because the format was changed, comparisons can be made by looking at the 77 percent of the program that deals with test scores, called K-Prep. The other part of Unbridled Learning, called program reviews, is new to this year’s results.

A third change in next year’s Unbridled Learning will add administrator and teacher performance evaluations.

Six schools in the county district increased in ranking by more than 20 percentile points, and the number of schools designated as distinguished doubled from three to six. The overall district percentile score in just that academic section increased from 58th to 87th percentile. The county district is the fifth-largest public school district in Kentucky, approaching 15,000 students, Clayton said.

“We did not meet our goals, but we made tremendous strides,” Clayton said.

He said the district’s goal is to become the highest performing school district in the state and serve as a model for the nation.

“Educating our students is a journey, not a destination,” he said.

Clayton and those in attendance talked about how to send a message that more local tax money and upgraded technology is needed in the district.

Clayton said a grass-roots movement to tell the story of more needed local resources could be the answer.

Board member Don Basham said the idea of getting county residents to vote for a tax increase above the 4 percent increase allowed by the state without a public referendum is difficult, because only about 20 percent of the residents actually have children in the district’s public schools.

An audience member said there’s support in the community to raise taxes for the county schools.

Board chairman Kerry Young said people on fixed incomes who don’t have children in the schools are not open to a tax increase.

As to technology, Basham – who sits on state and national school board panels about the technology question – said the state needs to be convinced that money for new computers and software needs to be distributed more consistently, not just one year and then not for seven years, such as the current case. Basham said after the meeting that discussions at the state level are about including technology money in the Support Educational Excellence in Kentucky, or SEEK, funding, the per-pupil funding public school districts receive.

A speaker at the meeting noted her children’s school has outdated computers. She challenged the policy the district uses that technology money is dispensed to schools based on their enrollments – the bigger the school, the more technology money.

Clayton and Basham agreed that approach for technology money was the fair way to distribute it. Technology in such a large school district isn’t cheap. Basham said when the school board decided to put smartboards in each classroom, the price tag was nearly $4 million.