Unofficial letter grade scores released by the Mississippi Department of Education last week reflect mixed results for Sunflower County Consolidated School District.
The county’s public schools received an overall F ranking by the state, but the district continues to show improvements in its lower grades.
According to the unofficial results, SCCSD has three elementary schools that received a B letter grade, two more than the district had in 2016-17.
Those are A.W. James Elementary, Ruleville Central Elementary and Inverness School.
Ruleville Middle School, East Sunflower Elementary, Drew Hunter Middle School, and James Rosser Elementary received D letter grades.
Lockard Elementary, Robert L. Merritt Junior High, Carver Elementary, Gentry High School and Ruleville Central High School received F grades.
These rankings could be adjusted if the Mississippi State Board of Education agrees to change its scoring methods during its October retreat, a release from MDE said last week.
MDE board members were set to approve the state scores during their regular meeting last Thursday, but they opted to postpone the decision, placing the standards under further review.
MDE has changed the scoring for districts and schools multiple times over the last several years, frustrating local educators and district leaders who struggle to make sense of the moving target while attempting to deliver data-driven instruction to students.
SCCSD Superintendent Miskia Davis said this is the fourth consecutive year MDE has adjusted the scoring model after scores were released.
“Parents have no idea the scores are changed every year,” Davis said.
William Murphy, director of personnel and student affairs said it is difficult for the public to understand the school and district scores in full context because of the frequent changes.
“It does not give a clear and accurate depiction of what happens in a district,” Murphy said.
The decision last week came three days after MDE released the now unofficial test scores to some media outlets.
The Enterprise-Tocsin received a copy of the scores last week.
Any changes in the way MDE ranks districts and schools this year will likely not move the needle drastically for SCCSD, but Dylan Jones, the district’s data specialist told The E-T that had MDE stuck with last year’s standards, SCCSD would have been a D-level school district this year, and at least one of its high schools, Ruleville Central, would have been a D instead of an F.
High Points
Sunflower County’s elementary students continue to show improvement with three schools receiving B letter grades this year, according to the unofficial results.
Lockard and Carver did receive F grades and East Sunflower and received a D, but the number of elementary schools receiving a B stands to rise from one to three this year, if the results remain the same.
In June, The E-T reported that the district’s third grade reading scores were among the best in the Delta, with an overall pass rate of 95 percent for the district.
The district specifically focused on reading intervention last school year, and Davis said this year, the district has invested money into curriculum that will allow teachers to focus on math intervention.
