Missouri's A–F school grading framework heads to state board for approval

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — KSHB 41 reporter Fernanda Silva covers stories in the Northland, including Liberty. She also focuses on issues surrounding immigration. Share your story idea with Fernanda.

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Missouri schools, districts and charter schools are expected to receive A–F letter grades under a new framework being developed by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The program still requires state board approval.

The framework comes in response to Executive Order 26-01, signed Jan. 13, 2026, by Gov. Mike Kehoe, which calls for an annual A–F grading system for Missouri schools.

DESE Deputy Commissioner of Learning Services Lisa Sireno recently updated the state board on the A–F grade card framework for school during their August 18 meeting.

Sireno emphasized accessibility and utility.

"We want to make these grade cards simple and clear for parents," Sireno said. "We want to place it at the building level so that we can use these grade cards to help support our school improvement work. So focus on those schools that are scoring Ds, those schools that are failing, and also for those schools that are in the C range that need to improve and want to improve."

According to DESE, grades K–8 grade cards will include student academic achievement, value-added growth, and growth toward proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA) literacy, mathematics, and science.

High school grade cards will include student academic achievement and value-added growth in ELA, mathematics, and science, as well as Success-Ready Graduate measures and four-year graduation rate.

DESE will ask for state board approval at its next meeting.

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Leslie Kohlmeyer, executive director of Show Me KC Schools, said her organization, which helps parents navigate the school choice landscape, welcomes the initiative.

"We are extremely excited," Kohlmeyer said.

"The number one question that parents ask us when they call is, 'Tell us which the best school is,'" Kohlmeyer said. "At least this will give them a starting point to kind of measure what that quality looks like."

The Missouri State Teachers Association opposes the proposal, arguing that reducing a school's performance to a single letter grade doesn't capture the full picture.

"Each district has a little bit of a different need or want," said Matt Michelson, the association's director of education policy. "Making everything dependent on a single letter grade that's dependent on a single test score creates a lot of problems."

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"We want to make sure that teachers aren't just teaching to a test," Michelson said.

I reached out to DESE for an interview, but the department was not available Monday.

Liberty Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Kephart, whom I interviewed last week, said her district will remain focused on what happens in its classrooms regardless of how the state's A–F system takes shape.

"It doesn't matter what comes from the state from an A- F report card," she said. "We are doing amazing things in our classrooms for students. And sometimes it's not all in the test scores."

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Kephart also described what she sees as a broader challenge facing public education in Missouri.

"Public education right now, Liberty Public Schools, but public education in Missouri is really under attack," Kephart said.

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The framework is scheduled to return to the State Board of Education as an action item in September. Missouri parents will likely not see the first public grade cards until April, 2027.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

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