The results are in for Sunflower County schools on state assessments.
According to the press release from the Mississippi Department of Education, every district in the state showed progress among their kindergarten classes, although student achievement varied by district.
“Mississippi kindergarten teachers are continuing to do a great job helping students build the foundational literacy skills they need to be successful throughout their education,” said State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright in a statement this week.
Numbers from schools in the Sunflower County Consolidated School District (SCCSD) appear on the back page. Although it is still very early in the 2017-18 school year, the district has already taken steps toward making improvements.
“We are not where we want to be, but we have had courageous conversations surrounding our data and we are more determined than ever to grow our great District,” said Superintendent Miskia Davis.
She said they received preliminary data in June and then devised a plan.
She said the district’s focus this year is on increasing teacher capacity systematically and they have already begun going into the schools, meeting with principals, observing and listening to teachers to determine a baseline on priorities and needs among who she called, “The people who have the greatest impact on student achievement, our teachers.”
Davis said the district office staff has been in the schools since the first week providing support to teachers and principals.
“Long gone are the days when children return on the first day but we don't start school until the third week,” she said. “This year, we hit the ground running.”
One of the biggest changes expected this year will be a decrease in the amount of dollars used to employ external providers.
The district, like many educational institutions across the state, suffered massive budget cuts on both the state and national levels.
The district will employ academic coaches in each school whose sole role is to support and assist teachers and create an environment that allows them to plan and teach, without all of the extras that sometimes shift their focus from effective instruction, Davis said.
Davis said they have also hired a data specialist, whose primary role is to collect and analyze data from all of the district assessments and provide training to teachers and administrators on how to use that data to guide instruction.
That position is designed to work closely with the teachers and academic coaches by providing them data on individual students and teachers so that they can spend their time planning and teaching.
Streamlining is another step they are taking to combat the challenges ahead,
Davis said before they had so many initiatives and people in the buildings that they couldn't legitimately determine who or what was making a difference. So this year they are narrowing their focus to math, and it will be easier to monitor and intervene and restructure as needed.
They are working with one company to guide their math teachers and academic coaches. That way if its not working they don’t have to guess which one it is.
The Department of Education has not yet released information on the comparisons of the two scores and the methods used to get them. However she said they understood at the end of last year that the numbers were not on their side.
“Our district went through a tough year last year, but we were determined to finish as strong as we could, and come back with a renewed energy,” Davis said.
Although the state information compares districts across the state, Davis said she has not looked at the scores of neighboring districts.
“We are not in competition with them. We are only looking within. What did we do well? What do we need to do to improve? What are the needs of our people? We are so focused on us, we don't have the time or energy to focus on anyone else,” she said.
