TYLERTOWN — Walthall County schools are helping their students improve, but the growth during the past year wasn’t enough to better the district’s grade.
In figures released publicly today and discussed preliminarily by the school board Tuesday, Walthall County was again rated a D district on the state’s A-F scale.
Dexter Elementary School and Salem Attendance Center were rated C. The remaining schools, Tylertown Primary, Elementary and High schools, were rated D.
Because there was a change in the cut scores for ratings starting next year, schools were awarded the higher score from this year’s scoring model and next year’s model.
Salem, which scored a D last year, improved enough to score a C under this year’s model, though the changes for next year would have left Salem a D again.
Tylertown High School was in the same situation, except the changes this year would have dropped the school’s score from a D to an F.
Tylertown Elementary School’s performance dropped slightly, so that the school earned a D under both models. TES scored a C grade last year.
Tylertown Primary School does not include any tested grades, so a formula is used to calculate a score based on the performance of former students at higher-level schools.
The district’s score was just four points from a C on next year’s model.
The accountability model emphasizes proficiency and growth, as measured by the state’s testing program in language arts, math and science up to eighth grade; and English II, Algebra I, U.S. history and Biology I at the high school level.
Students are deemed proficient if they score in the proficient or advanced levels of the test scoring system. Students and schools receive no credit for proficiency if they score in one of the bottom three levels of the scoring system: minimal, basic or pass.
Each student who scores proficient or advanced is awarded a point. Other students are scored zero.
Students who move from one performance level to a higher level, or who remain at either proficient or advanced, earn a growth point. Students in the bottom three performance levels may earn a growth point for moving up across the midpoint score within those levels, though “I hear on the street that may be going away,” district curriculum coordinator Bradley Brumfield said.
An increase of more than one level earns a student 1.2 points, and an increase from any other level to advanced earns 1.25 points.
“If you jump the line in the sand, you can make growth,” Brumfield said. “If you’re just a point or two from the next level, and increase that much, you make growth. If you’re further back and increase your score more than the first kid, but don’t cross that line to the next level, you don’t make growth.”
Walthall showed growth especially among the lowest-performing quarter of students. District-wide, close to two-thirds of the lowest students in reading made growth, while almost 70 percent of the lowest math students showed growth.
Overall, more than 50 percent of students showed growth in both reading and math.
Proficiency scores “are a moving target,” Brumfield said. “Your scores can go up, and your grade can go down.”
Still, growth is an important factor, he said, with Walthall schools showing more growth than most of the surrounding districts.
“Our growth is evidence that our teachers are teaching the kids,” Brumfield said.
That extends even to kindergarten students, who aren’t part of the state assessment and accountability system, but are tested to gauge school readiness and progress.
On the Mississippi Kindergarten Assessment Support System, average scores increased by more than 240 points from the beginning of the school year to the end.
Though the desired score at the beginning of the year is at least 500, and none of the Walthall schools average that result, all of the district’s primary-level schools average a higher result at the end of the year than is recommended for promotion to first grade with confidence of student success.
“Our kindergarten teachers are doing a great job,” Brumfield said. “We don’t have the highest scores, but we do very well in our area.”
