JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Kansas City schools will remain unaccredited for a while longer as students prepare for a new school year that starts next month.

The school district had offered to drop a lawsuit challenging its unaccredited status if Missouri education officials would grant it temporary provisional accreditation for the school year starting Aug. 11.

But the State Board of Education decided to take no action Tuesday on the request. The education department said there isn’t enough data available yet to determine if the district has earned provisional accreditation.

The label matters because districts that are unaccredited must pay the costs of students who choose to transfer to other nearby schools.

Kansas City school officials say just 24 of their nearly 16,000 students applied to transfer during the upcoming school year.