
Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher told a crowd of community members in Lexington that the goal of the assessment and accountability town halls is to use the input to craft a Framework 3.0. “We’re not all going to agree, but I can tell you this: if you really put the work in from that local level and get the input of your community, the input of your students, it’s going to be a success.” Photo by Joe Ragusa, Kentucky Department of Education, Jan. 15, 2025
Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher and representatives of the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) are gathering input from education stakeholders across the Commonwealth during a series of town halls dedicated to assessment and accountability.
The community conversations are designed to help shape the future of education in the Commonwealth, including a review of the current assessment and accountability model framework. Attendees also see what innovative things are happening in surrounding districts to provide Kentucky’s students with vibrant learning experiences.
“This is a great opportunity for everybody to see what our plans are for federal accountability, while also allowing local districts to dream when it comes to local accountability,” Fletcher said.
The work on the assessment and accountability model framework began when KDE conducted a survey during the COVID-19 pandemic and a listening tour in 2021, asking people what worked for their students, what could be improved and what kind of education system they wanted to see.
The Coalition for Advancing Education took that information and helped create the United We Learn Report, which became KDE’s vision. The vision focuses on three big ideas: creating a more vibrant experience for every student, encouraging innovation in our schools – especially when it comes to assessment – and creating a bold new future for Kentucky’s schools through collaboration with our communities.
The Kentucky United We Learn Council was formed to reflect on the report, to determine a course of action and to come up with the moonshot for education in Kentucky, “To build a prosperous Kentucky, we will launch an accountability system that is meaningful and useful to all our learners.”

Attendees of the assessment and accountability town halls got the chance to ask questions and provide input on the latest framework and other matters affecting education. Photo by Joe Ragusa, Kentucky Department of Education, Jan. 29, 2025
The council, which is comprised of a wide-ranging group of people – families, students, educators, legislators, business leaders and community members – has been designing an assessment and accountability model framework. They have gone through several versions leading to Framework 2.0, which is what KDE is seeking input on during the town hall meetings.
Jennifer Stafford, division director for KDE’s Office of Assessment and Accountability, explained the proposed framework to attendees of each meeting. The framework includes streamlined statewide accountability measures that that meet federal requirements – reading and math, individual student growth, transition readiness and graduation rate, English language progress and the climate and safety survey – while providing choice measures with options for local flexibility and local measures that are unique to each district.
“We can have local control where our districts come together and engage with their communities to decide what’s important for that community, and it doesn’t have to be the same (across the state),” Stafford said.
The choice measures in the proposed framework include assessments for social studies and writing, interim assessments through grades 3-10 and an indicator for vibrant learning experiences.
Students must be tested in science using a common statewide measure under federal requirements, but districts may choose to include it in local accountability and add additional competency-based measures.
The town halls have featured discussions on the proposed framework, as well as discussions on vibrant learning experiences – which feature heavily in the local accountability portion of the framework – and how to make learning relevant to students.
Sarah Snipes, director of KDE’s Division of Innovation, presented examples of Kentucky students experiencing vibrant learning, including a garden students design to learn about pollination and a medical lesson where students investigate an illness.
“What I hope you get out of this is a shift, a transformation that hopefully helps our kids want to be in school; hopefully helps develop them as human beings who are strong members of their society well beyond the time they leave and graduate high school,” Snipes said. “(This is) learning that gives them the skills they need to be successful in life.”
The town halls are hosted by regional educational cooperatives in different parts of the state, with representatives from local school districts that have already started work on local accountability. Local measures may be developed to align with the district’s portrait of a learner.
A Portrait of a Learner is an agreed-upon set of school- or district-level aspirations for what every learner will know and be able to do when they leave school.
Woodford County Public Schools has developed its own version of the Portrait of a Learner focused on five competencies district leaders developed after years of discussion and collaboration with educators and the community. The district’s portrait states that a Woodford County’s student should be a resilient learner, empathetic communicator, reflective collaborator, responsible contributor and creative problem-solver.

Representatives with the Woodford County school district – Ryan Asher, chief academic officer, and Susan Tracy, director of student achievement – shared their experiences with the development and implementation of their Portrait of a Learner during the assessment and accountability town hall. Photo by Joe Ragusa, Kentucky Department of Education, Jan. 15, 2025
Woodford County Chief Academic Officer Ryan Asher explained during the Jan. 15 town hall at the Central Kentucky Educational Cooperative in Lexington that the district also has worked with several neighboring districts, gathering as much input as possible on what the region needs.
“We’re really inspired by them, and it’s gone both ways: they’re learning from us and vice versa, we’re learning from them,” Asher said. “It has really been a collaborative, peer-supported network.”
Leaders in Bullitt County shared their work developing the Bullitt County Public Schools Graduate Profile. Superintendent Jesse Bacon said the district has been working on their profile since 2016 in an effort to show students and schools are more than just an assessment score.
“We were going to meaningfully engage our parents, community and business leaders to ensure that we were providing a service that they value,” he said.
Bacon explained that they engaged with the Bullitt County community over the course of multiple years to develop their profile, which focuses on six competencies a student should display before they graduate.
“We are not a completed project yet. We have a lot of work yet to do, but it will never be a completed project,” Bacon said. “The goal for us is to do this in a way that honors the continual evolution of our community and the ever-changing needs of our community and our students.”
KDE also held a hybrid Spanish-language town hall at Dishman-McGinnis Elementary School in Bowling Green on Jan. 27. During that town hall, officials from Shelby County explained how they navigated their diverse student population while working on their Profile of a Graduate. A translator was on hand to help officials communicate with the audience.
Adam Hicks, Shelby County Public Schools assistant superintendent of curriculum, said 27% of the Shelby County student population is Hispanic and anywhere from 13-to-15% are multilingual, with their primary language being Spanish. He said the district developed its portrait around six competencies and incorporated defenses of learning, where students shared a portfolio or project and reflected on how they achieved their intended learning outcomes – a common feature of the portraits districts have been developing.
Hicks said it was important to ensure every student in the district could complete a defense of learning, which meant allowing students to present in their native language.
“Our defenses of learning have really been a point of celebration for all of us in Shelby County, largely because it allows each student to shine and show how they have applied their learning to their context without having to worry about language being a barrier,” Hicks said.
Representatives with the two surrounding districts – Bowling Green Independent and Warren County Public Schools – addressed questions from attendees on where the district is at with these topics.
The town halls gave local community members the opportunity to provide input about the assessment and accountability framework. KDE team members and local school officials addressed questions about a variety of topics, ranging from how social studies fits into local accountability to how to adequately incorporate the arts into the accountability system.
The town halls will continue through February. Remaining dates include:
- Feb. 4: Southeast South-Central Educational Cooperative, 55 Waco Drive, London, 5-7 p.m. ET
- Feb. 12: Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Educational Services, 5400 Old Taylor Mill Road, Taylor Mill, 5-7 p.m. ET. NOTE: This is a change in location from previously released information.
- Feb. 27: Kentucky Educational Development Corporation, 904 W. Rose Road, Ashland, 5-7 p.m. ET
More information about the current framework and the Kentucky United We Learn Council’s timeline can be found on KDE’s Reimagining Assessment and Accountability webpage.
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