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Amory High School English II teacher Rachael Sibley teaches a classroom lesson last week. Through spring assessment data recently released by the Mississippi Department of Education, AHS’ English II scores ranked third in the state in overall proficiency for districts.
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Amory High School English II teacher Rachael Sibley teaches a classroom lesson last week. Through spring assessment data recently released by the Mississippi Department of Education, AHS’ English II scores ranked third in the state in overall proficiency for districts.
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The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) recently released results of the spring semester’s assessments for public schools, which indicated areas of growth for Monroe County students.
Pursuant to legislation passed in 2013, school districts across Mississippi are ranked on a grading scale of A-F based on student scores on the assessments that identify achievement and growth. The letter grades will be released at a later date.
The system’s goal is to help parents and the public better understand how well a school is performing and to begin conversations to continually improve education.
“Our key takeaways are that students are learning, and teachers are teaching. All districts across the state have seen the effect that COVID has placed on their districts,” said Amory School District Superintendent Brian Jones.
He is pleased with the performance of the students at Amory School District.
“Our students performed very well when looking at the statewide average on the state test. Amory was above state average in all categories except one,” he said.
High points of Amory’s data include English II being ranked third in the state in overall proficiency in terms of districts. Amory ranked eighth statewide in U.S. History, while fourth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) ranked fourth.
“We will continue to improve as principals and teachers are now currently looking at the data to make decisions on how to continue to have our students prepared for this school year,” Jones said.
According to Monroe County School District (MCSD) Superintendent Dr. Chad O’Brian, student proficiency is above the state average for every subject and grade the MDE measures. He said the district’s ranking statewide is still pending final official numbers from the state.
“MCSD has three attendance centers, and our scores are calculated differently from districts that do not have all K-12 grades on one campus. We are confident we will compare favorably once those final calculations are released. However, the numbers released by MDE so far only reflect proficiency, which is only a third of how a district’s total scores are calculated,” he said.
O’Brian thinks the district is doing well following disruptions caused by COVID-19.
“We feel like we are making significant progress, and the numbers show that. Our staff has worked tirelessly to bring student achievement back to pre-pandemic levels. From the numbers we are receiving, we are on the verge of doing that,” he said.
O’Brian views math as the MCSD’s apparent strength.
“Almost every grade and subject are well above the state average in proficiency, double digits above the state average in some areas. We are also seeing good growth in these areas,” he said.
As far as improvement goals, O’Brian is focusing on English.
“The biggest area we need to improve is middle school English Language Arts. In grades six through eight, we are not seeing the growth we would like to see across the district with regard to ELA,” he said.
Aberdeen School District Superintendent Dr. Andrea Pastchal-Smith said the most significant overall growth throughout the district was in ELA and math. The district’s goal for ELA and math is 44 percent proficiency.
“We’re very pleased but still there’s work to be done. We’re striving to improve student achievement each day,” she said.
She said Belle-Shivers Middle School showed significant growth. There was also tremendous growth in Algebra I at Aberdeen High School, compared to the spring 2021 assessments.
“At the high school, we increased proficiency for U.S. History from 7.9 percent to 60.6 percent. The high school also increased the Biology I proficiency from one percent to 40.8 percent,” she said.
She also acknowledged a significant increase in the third-grade reading assessment passing rate at Aberdeen Elementary School, which was 75.5 percent this spring, compared to 37 percent the previous year.
Smith also reported significant gains in ELA in grades three through seven, English II, third- through seventh-grade math, Algebra I and fifth-grade science.
Students are aware of their MAAP goals and targets to advance to the next levels.
“It’s important that our students understand the data and understand the point of growth they need to strive to achieve this year,” Smith said. “This year, we’ll be a district that is data-driven.”
Her plan for continued success includes each school working towards an accountability rating goal; frequent meetings to identify students in need of more support; more parental involvement, such as monthly Parent University meetings; and academically growing the lowest-performing students.
“We believe in rewarding students for their hard work and dedication so we’re kicking off our Positive Behavior Intervention System support in renewing the climate and culture of our schools and focusing on behavior, attendance and achievement,” Smith said.
As far as the Nettleton School District, superintendent Tim Dickerson highlighted strong suits, while realizing there are needs for improvement.
“I feel like we underperformed greatly. We’ve got people put in place who, I think, are going to be able to help that and we’re looking for every bit of help we can get to help our students learn and grow because that’s what we’re here for. We’re looking for much better results in the future,” he said.
Dickerson noted Nettleton Primary School had great test scores in proficiency, including a high pass rate on the third-grade reading assessment. Nettleton High School’s graduation rate was 83.2 percent, which was higher compared to previous years.
“Our algebra scores were way up than what they used to be and with that, we had a really high growth rate for algebra. History was good for us, and we had a higher than usual history proficiency rate. Our science was down a little bit, but it was still pretty good,” he said.
He said there were struggles for grades four through eight, but the district is implementing steps for improvement not just for the middle school levels but for all students throughout the district.
“We’ve got to get our students interested in performing well in day-to-day classwork, as well as in those end of the year assessments,” Dickerson said.
This year, the school district implemented the performance-based education Go Green program, which helps teachers understand the data and apply it to what individual students need to do in the classrooms to academically grow.
Nettleton’s districtwide theme this year is Rise Above, which focuses on steps to help unlock students’ potential. Parents and community stakeholders can play a part in the campaign as well.
“People can participate by buying into what we’re doing and provide home support and any kind of tutoring support. Our students need help outside of the classroom, and it’s so important for them to have somebody to read to them when they’re not in school and find things they can read and help them understand the things they’re reading. On the math side, there are people out there fluent enough to be able to help kids, especially younger kids, to understand math concepts. If they understand it, they’re going to keep it throughout their entire school life and learn more in a quicker manner,” Dickerson said.
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