Two St. Louis area school districts at risk of losing their state accreditation, Normandy and Jennings, failed to boost their showing in academic snapshots released today by state education officials.

Three other area districts — Ferguson-Florissant, Hazelwood and University City — also showed scores that could jeopardize their full accreditation in the future.

The scores are included in Preliminary Annual Performance Reports issued by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The reports show Normandy and Jennings school districts each meeting just five of 14 academic standards.

Those standards are the basis for Missouri's accreditation requirements for public schools. The standards cover test scores, attendance and graduation rates, ACT scores and other academic indicators.

Normandy and Jennings are among nine school districts in the state that are provisionally accredited based on last year's scores. The state reviews school districts every five years, but a poor score on the performance reports can prompt state education officials to speed up that process.

The data released today are based on preliminary reports, and districts have the next month to ask the state for revisions on their score based on discrepancies.

Ferguson-Florissant, Hazelwood and University City are now fully accredited. But without an improvement in their scores, the districts could be at risk of losing accreditation, raising fears that failures typical of urban schools are pushing deeper into the suburbs.

William Tate, head of the department of education at Washington University, said many suburbs in north St. Louis County have suffered from low incomes and high unemployment among residents — factors that historically have bred higher dropout rates and lower academic performance.

Meanwhile, school districts across more affluent parts of the metro area are almost universally meeting the state accreditation standards.

"In St. Louis, it is a wall," Tate said, referring to the geographic divide in school quality.

Declining home values in poorer school districts are sapping their financial means to deal with the issue, Tate said.

"Unless something is done to inherently change the system, it is going to continue," he said.

The prevalence of families living in poverty is absolutely on the rise in North County, Normandy Superintendent Stanton Lawrence said.

And some of the circumstances most often associated with poverty — unemployment, illiteracy, homelessness — can impede progress in schools, he said.

"The responsibility of educational leaders in these communities is to reach out to families, community leaders, businesses and faith-based entities to create solutions to these challenges," Lawrence wrote in an e-mail.

Reaching accreditation, he said, "means radically rethinking our approach."

In that respect, Normandy reorganized this year. Principals had to reapply for their jobs. Administrators conducted national searches to fill the positions and changed the structure of the central office staff. Lawrence called the elevated amount of support being provided to school leaders and teachers "a major game changer."

GRADE REACTIONS

Most districts do well on the performance reports. But a district can face state takeover if it is unaccredited for two years.

Districts that meet five or fewer standards risk losing their accreditation. Those meeting between six and eight standards would be considered to be provisionally accredited if the state was to review them immediately.

In the reports released today, the Ferguson-Florissant district met seven of the 14 standards and Hazelwood met eight. Riverview Gardens schools have already lost accreditation but improved from a score of three last year to five this year.

St. Louis Public Schools also improved last year's score, now meeting five standards instead of three.

"We were hopeful that it would be more, but we're pleased it is moving in the right direction," Superintendent Kelvin Adams said.

Hazelwood, which met 10 of 14 standards last year, could be considered provisionally accredited if reviewed today, based on its preliminary score of eight. Leaders there said that they were working to correct problems identified in the district's attendance data and that they believe the change will increase the score.

"If the final report indicates we lost a standard (a point), we would be disappointed by that, but our students and staff are working hard," district spokeswoman Diana Gulotta said. "In the end, we need to make whatever necessary changes to ensure that we are increasing the number of standards met each year."

State-appointed boards currently run St. Louis and Riverview Gardens. The state dissolved the Wellston School District this year, sending its students to Normandy schools.

Some wondered whether the students were any better off.

But Missouri education officials remain hopeful about turnaround at struggling schools, with support from the state and accountability plans, as well as changes in leadership this year prompted by federal School Improvement Grants. The improvement made in Normandy and Jennings is not necessarily reflected in these scores, said Bob Taylor, a supervisor for the state department of education who oversees progress at struggling St. Louis area districts.

"It's a long process, and you're looking for ongoing improvement — just not a quick fix in one year," Taylor said. "With the current leadership, the governance in place, new principals, new teachers, I think that Normandy's on the move and that's going to be a good move for Wellston children."

Some of the state's other provisionally accredited districts are in rural areas, where some of the same problems of literacy and concentrations of high poverty exist.

Schools across the country are wrestling with many of the same problems.

"Every child needs to succeed at high levels, and we have to figure out how schools can overcome some of the socioeconomic factors that kids come to us with," said Chris Nicastro, Missouri's commissioner of education.

"We simply don't have time to waste. Supporting and ensuring positive student performance for every one of our kids in Missouri is our No. 1 priority."

Matthew Franck of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.