Hays, KS: "2,000 of the district’s 3,000 students qualify as at-risk"

Nov 3, 2026, Hays Post: Hays USD 489 must meet at-risk student assessment goal by 2030 or lose up to $4M

The Hays USD 489 school board heard a report on its at-risk accountability plan on Monday.

The district has four years to help at-risk students improve their assessment scores, or it can lose up to $4.1 million in state funding.

“That seems counterintuitive,” Jayme Goetz, school board member, said.

The Kansas Legislature passed a law in 2024 that establishes requirements to create at-risk student accountability plans, annually report on at-risk student performance, show longitudinal academic improvement for those students and report annually to the Kansas Board of Education on the progress of such plans.

Hays USD 489 has participated in a pilot program. All public districts must participate beginning this year.

If school districts don’t have 75% of students scoring proficient on the state assessment, they must participate. Only two school systems in the state meet the 75% requirements, said Shanna Dinkel, assistant superintendent.

Dinkel said the legislation requires school districts to choose two groups to focus on.

Hays chose third-grade and fourth-grade students, who are at-risk but are not special-education students. The third-grade group will have 70 students, and the fourth-grade group will have 83 students.

Students who fall into one or more of these categories are considered at-risk. Courtesy of Hays USD 489

Dinkel said 2,000 of the district’s 3,000 students qualify as at-risk.

The district will focus on reducing the number of students in both groups scoring at the lowest level (level 1) on state assessment tests.

Dinkel said the district will test students in the fall to gauge what academic interventions they need. In year four of the plan, when students are in sixth and seventh grade, the district will have to report their assessment scores to the state.

Dinkel said not all of the students in these two groups are scoring non-proficient on their state assessments. 

However, Dinkel said an at-risk student who is chronically absent might be scoring at grade level now, but might slip without intervention by the time they reach the sixth grade. . . .