The Kentucky Board of Education took a break from its governance duties today to honor eight Kentucky school districts that posted top performance in the 2011-12 school year on the new Unbridled Learning accountability system.

The eight districts are listed here along with their eligibility rates for the federal free and reduced cost lunch program, often used as a measure of student poverty.

Note that most of the districts had considerably lower than state average student poverty rates, but the Corbin Independent system actually had a rather high poverty rate that equals the statewide average. That’s really notable for a district that placed among the very top performers in Kentucky and shows there is hope that other districts with notable student challenges can still perform for their students.

Congratulations to all these districts and a special hat-tip to Corbin Independent.