Luke Ragland is the vice president of policy for Colorado Succeeds, a Colorado School Grades community partner. This op-ed originally appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette.

A recent guest column, “We should reward best teachers in Colorado,” by Sen. Owen Hill and Tyler Lawrence briefly touched on the importance of the website ColoradoSchool Grades.com and why millions of Coloradans – 1.3 million in fact – have used it. As a representative of Colorado School Grades, I’d like to thank Sen. Hill and Mr. Lawrence for highlighting how this tool uses student test scores to help parents make informed decisions about their child’s education. With state testing happening this spring in local schools, I think that a longer explanation for parents is necessary.

Since Colorado Succeeds and 17 community partners launched the Colorado School Grades website in 2010, we’ve provided millions of parents across the state with valuable, easy-to-understand school performance information. This nationally acclaimed platform’s letter-grade ratings are straightforward, comprehensive, and accessible.

This year, changes in Colorado’s state test meant that the data we use to calculate the school grades wasn’t available, and so we weren’t able to update those school grades for 2015, as we explained on our website.

Fortunately, after this spring’s test results come back, the Colorado Department of Education will again have two years’ worth of data, allowing us to update Colorado School Grades ratings for every public school in the state. We are excited to provide parents with the information they need to make school choice decisions for their children.

But for the ratings to be accurate and representative of the state’s schools, and therefore meaningful to the millions of parents who use this tool, we need to make sure students participate in the CMAS/PARCC exams this spring.

To read the entire piece, click here.

Dominique and her son Davin

As a former DPS charter school student, a former DPS teacher, and a graduate of the UNC Center for Urban Education, I thought I knew it all. I knew how important my son’s first experiences in school were. I was all too familiar with what he would be doing in a half-day program with very little resources and I was afraid that he would not flourish in the ways I had dreamed for him. But little did I know, the school of choice system had changed significantly.  How had I missed this opportunity for my son’s education? How did I not know that even though we lived in Aurora, the most amazing school of choice was just right down the road?

Dominique and Davin

Thanks to a friend, I found out about Rocky Mountain Prep and imagined a day that my son would get the kind of education they provided there. I was shocked at how easy the school of choice process was and so grateful for all the help I received through the process.  The waiting was the hardest part and yet, just a few days before school started, I got the call that would put me right back into tears. My son would start his education as a kindergarten scholar at Rocky Mountain Prep.

I could not be more proud of my first grade scholar and I could not have asked for a better community for my son. I have to be honest, if the school of choice process had been difficult or if I had not had so many wonderful people helping me navigate it, I probably would have abandoned hope. We are so lucky to live in an area with so many choices to fit our children’s needs.

In this Q & A, Traut Core Knowledge’s Principal Mark Wertheimer describes his school, which is among the top 10 elementary schools in Colorado this year.

Describe your school’s mission and illustrate it with an example from the classroom.

Our vision is educational excellence in knowledge, skills and character, with strong parent-teacher-student partnerships.

Our mission is to provide excellence and fairness in education for elementary school children. Excellence in education means raising academic standards and achieving success for all students. Fairness in education means providing equal opportunity to learn for all students. We accomplish this through our five pillars (see below).

Two projects undertaken by our second grade classrooms can help illustrate this mission in action.  All second grade students memorize, illustrate, and recite the preamble to the Constitution.  They then create a classroom constitution—one which embeds our character qualities within its verbiage.  The students, principal, and classroom teacher all sign this document in a classroom ceremony.

Later in the year, all students research their family backgrounds.  They then select one of their countries of origin and create a presentation on that country (as well as how their family came to the USA) which is performed in front of family and friends in our cafeteria.

What are one or two ways that the team at your school meets students’ academic needs?

We have over 60 staff hours per day allocated toward intervention needs.  These interventions include providing differentiated instruction across ability levels, grade levels, and subject areas.  We are continually fine-tuning these services, providing cross-training for our staff to be nimble enough to accommodate the needs of our population, whether it be for primary or intermediate grades, struggling or advanced students, or for math or language arts assistance.

These interventions, combined with the extensive expertise provided by our veteran classroom teachers, help us continue to our legacy as a school which continually performs at the very topmost levels in the state.

Nevertheless, as our motto states, we “Never Give Up” in our pursuit of the highest levels of academic excellence for all students.

Name one or two characteristics, programs, or other detail about your school that makes it a special place.

After featuring a map of Colorado’s A+ Elementary and Middle Schools, here are the top High Schools for 2014.

Yesterday, we featured Colorado’s A+ Elementary Schools. Today, the top Middle Schools in the state. Stay tuned for the best  High Schools tomorrow.