TYLERTOWN — Walthall County school officials know how their students performed on state tests in the spring. They just don’t know exactly what it means yet.
The district received test scores and performance levels for its students in July, but school and district performance ratings won’t be released until September or October.
District Testing Coordinator Bradley Brumfield, during a July 31 meeting, pointed to several good results by district elementary and junior high students, including third- and fourth-grade English-language arts and third-grade math, where the largest number of students taking the test scored proficient or advanced, the highest performance levels.
“This is what you want to see, with the trend kind of going in a straight line,” Brumfield said, illustrating the scores in charts. “There’s a few kids scoring minimal, and the line rises ... to proficient and advanced, where we get points for that performance.”
Most of the elementary and junior high test scores follow a different pattern. While most grade levels show more proficient and advanced scores than minimal, at some levels more students score basic than proficient and advanced, and at most levels the most students score at the passing level.
“Basically, we’re getting a bell curve, and that is probably, statistically, what we’re going to see,” Brumfield said.
On the fifth-grade science test, the bell curve was present to show results, but performance skewed low on the eighth-grade science test, where fewer than 10 percent of students scored proficient or advanced.
On the high school subject area tests, the district’s students produced some semblance of a bell curve in their scores on English II, Algebra I and biology. On U.S. history, students produced a result the opposite of what officials want to see, with the highest number of students scoring minimal and the smallest group scoring proficient or advanced.
In other business, the board discussed some changes to course offerings.
This year, the district is adding agricultural leadership at Salem Attendance Center.
In the 2019-2020 school year, the curriculum will include computer coding for all grades, including kindergarten. Teachers will receive training in coding starting this year.
“They’re already doing this in Columbia,” Brumfield said. “They have 30 minutes of coding every Friday.”
Superintendent Wade Carney added that driver’s education will be added back to the curriculum this year.
“We had a lot of requests for that, and about 30 students signed up,” Carney said.
The district is reimbursed $40 per student that takes the course by the state.
The district could also open up some courses to more students.
Carney said some homeschool parents had asked about enrolling their children in programs at the Career and Technology Center.
“We’re looking to see how it might affect us if they are allowed to come, but we haven’t completed that,” he said. “We want to see if it will be beneficial to the county.”
Among the issues the district is looking into, is whether the district gets attendance credit and per-pupil funding for any homeschoolers that attend CTC classes.
CTC Director Beth Cowart said students at Columbia Academy attend classes at Marion County’s Career and Technology Center.
