DENVER -- Taxpayers shelled out more than $6 million to prepare, produce and print the accountability report.

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Were School Accountability Reports Accurate? Why Isn't Adams 50 School District Talking? Weapons In Elementary Schools Weapons At Denver Public Schools Dangerous Weapons In Schools View Complete Statistics

A project born back in 1999 -- it was labeled a landmark education reform spearheaded by Gov. Bill Owens.

Owens on April 10, 2000: By signing this bill today we crossed the threshold to a new era of accountability in public schools.

That was 19 months ago. Now, the first accountability reports are on their way to parents and our investigation found at least four Denver-area school districts making significant errors in the information they reported on dangerous weapons.

Rick Kaufman, Jeffco Schools spokesman: No one wants to make mistakes. No one is proud of mistakes that are made.

Jefferson County believes it misreported dangerous weapons incidents at Molholm Elementary School, but it's not sure because the district admits its records are confusing.

Rick Kaufman, Jeffco schools spokesman: Do I feel bad? Yes. Do I feel like we can do a better job? Absolutely. Will we do a better job? Absolutely -- all the way around.

The Cherry Creek School District also admits it made mistakes on its dangerous weapons reports.

Tony Kovaleski, 7NEWS: The numbers you turned into the state were not correct.

Monte Moses, Cherry Creek Superintendent: That is true.

Cherry Creek misreported the number of dangerous weapons and the number of incidents it eventually referred to law enforcement.

Kovaleski: Embarrassed by these mistakes?

Monte Moses, Cherry Creek Superintendent: Sure. I would prefer for everything to be perfect.

Westminster's Adams 50 School District and Denver's public schools also admitted they failed to accurately report dangerous weapons incidents to the state's department of education.

Molly Gonzales, Molholm parent: I was not aware of this. This is a surprise to me.

Our investigation also uncovered parents kept in the dark about the significance of dangerous weapons at their child's school.

Aleta Province, Molholm parent: Oh my gosh, that's a lot.

The state's accountability report showed 15 incidents of dangerous weapons in Jeffco's Molholm Elementary School. It did not tell parents what our investigation uncovered -- those 15 incidents were more than any other elementary school and more than 628 of 631 schools in the Denver area's ten largest school districts.

Our investigation also found serious inconsistencies from district to district in the definition of dangerous weapons and in the discipline of offending students.

Monte Moses, Cherry Creek Superintendent: That kind of thing may indeed be a conversation that we need to have right now.

So after working for 19 months, printing more than 300,000 reports and spending more than $6 million tax dollars, parents are opening accountability reports filled with errors, lacking context and consistency.

Stan Matsunaka, State Senate President: Obviously, we've got a bust somewhere we better fix it right away because people are getting bad information.

Senate president Stan Matsunaka chairs the state's committee on education. He says blame can be spread equally between the governor, the legislature and the state department of education.

Kovaleski: Schools are about grades. How would you grade the accountability reports?

Stan Matsunaka, Senate President: D to F. I mean it's clearly that we failed. I'm disappointed that we can't give parents reliable information. It truly was a waste of tax dollars.

William Moloney, Colorado Commissioner of Education: Can they be better? Absolutely.

The state's commissioner of education admits his department and the local school districts both contributed to the failures in the accountability report.

William Moloney, Colorado Commissioner of Education: If we said this is as good as it gets, we would be fools. This is not as good as it gets. It can and will be better.

Kovaleski: The commissioner of the department of education says they made some mistakes and it will get better. Is that good enough?

Stan Matsunaka, Senate President: Whenever you spend taxpayer dollars you need accountability. And we hope to get better is not an answer. We must get better. We must get better.

7NEWS offered Gov. Owens an opportunity to comment on the findings of our investigation and the failures of the accountability report. He declined our request for an interview.

Senator Matsunaka says the senate education committee will hold special hearings on the accountability reports starting in January.