Spotlight: How Hazelwood School District Turned Governance Goals Into Accreditation Results

January — Companion to the January Execution Arc

I’ve worked with the Hazelwood School District Board of Education for several years now, and I’ve watched them do something I don’t see most boards do. They took the governance goal-setting process — draft, community input, hearing, adoption, monitoring — and treated it as a continuous cycle rather than an annual event. And in doing so, they produced a measurable result that can’t be attributed to any single policy or program: they moved from provisional accreditation to full MSIP accreditation.

The Hazelwood story is worth telling because the path they took is the path this January arc describes. Not as theory. As practice.

Where they started

When I first began working with Hazelwood, the board was governing the way most boards govern. Board President Sparkl A. West-Pruitt and Superintendent Dr. Nettie Collins-Hart had inherited a district in transition. They had a strategic plan with broad priorities. They had a budget that followed historical patterns. They had meetings that were orderly and unproductive.

The accreditation status at the time — provisional — was a symptom of a governance problem. Not a teaching problem. Not a leadership problem. A governance problem. The board couldn’t tell you which of its actions were producing which outcomes. It couldn’t point to a goal, show you the data, and say “we moved this number because we directed resources here.”

That’s not a criticism of the board members. They were doing what they knew how to do. The problem was that what they knew how to do wasn’t connected to student outcomes.

The goal adoption cycle

We started with the ESB framework’s goal-setting process. The board reviewed its data — not the averages, the disaggregated breakdowns by student group. They identified where the gaps were widest and where the accreditation standards were most at risk. They drafted goals that were specific, measurable, and time-bound.

But the critical step — the one that most boards skip — was the public hearing. Hazelwood’s board didn’t adopt its goals in a board room with no community present. They presented the draft goals at a public meeting. They shared the data that informed those goals. They invited community input. They took questions. And then they voted to adopt, with West-Pruitt making a public statement committing the board to regular progress reviews.

That public hearing changed the relationship between the board and the community. The community saw the data. They understood why certain goals were set at certain levels. They became partners in the work — because they’d been invited into it.

The monitoring cadence

After adoption, Hazelwood didn’t put the goals on a shelf. Every board meeting included a data review against the adopted goals. Fifteen minutes. Dashboard format. Dr. Collins-Hart would brief, the board would question, and the outcome was recorded. The same structure every time.

The cadence created accountability that didn’t exist before. When data showed a goal was off track, the board didn’t wait for the end of the year to address it. They gave direction in the same meeting: “Provide an intervention plan. Report back in thirty days.”

When data showed progress, the board acknowledged it publicly. The superintendent knew the board was watching. The community knew the board was engaged. The goals became the operating system for every board meeting — not a document filed away until next year’s planning retreat.

The result

Hazelwood moved from provisional accreditation to full accreditation — the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education now rates the district as Fully Accredited. Not because the board adopted a magic policy or hired a particular consultant. Because they governed differently. They set specific goals. They adopted them publicly. They monitored progress consistently. They connected their goals to their budget direction. And they held themselves and the superintendent accountable for results.

The accreditation outcome was the measurable result of a governance process that worked.

What you can learn from Hazelwood

Three things, specifically, that any board can implement this month:

  1. The public hearing matters. Hazelwood’s goals were better because the community helped shape them. And the community was more supportive because they’d been part of the process. The public hearing isn’t a risk. It’s an asset.

  2. The monitoring cadence is what produces the result. Hazelwood’s goals didn’t achieve themselves. They were achieved because the board reviewed progress at every meeting and gave direction when data showed the need. The cadence is the mechanism.

  3. Accreditation changes are governance changes. The districts that improve their accreditation status almost always do so because the board started governing differently, not because the district started spending differently. Accreditation measures system performance. System performance starts with governance.

Hazelwood’s story isn’t unique in the ESB coaching portfolio. I’ve seen similar results in Council Bluffs, Ladue, Grand Prairie, and other districts that committed to the governance practices this arc describes.

But Hazelwood’s story is worth telling now — during this January arc, when your board is making the same choices about goals, monitoring, and accountability — because it shows what’s possible when the January Execution Arc isn’t just a newsletter series.

It’s your board’s operating plan for the year.

Go do the work. The results follow.

This January Spotlight accompanies the January Execution Arc. Catch the full series — from the organizational meeting through the governance roadmap — at effectiveschoolboards.com/newsletter.