Louisville Municipal School District was among the 46 school districts out of 140 that increased a letter grade from 2017-18 school year to 2018-19 school year under the Mississippi Department of Education accountability model and testing.
LMSD increased from a C district in 2017-2018 to a B district in 2018-2019.
“We want to celebrate the accomplishment, yet we do not want to stay the same. We aim to continue to improve and strive toward an ‘A’ district,” said Louisville Municipal School District Superintendent Randy Grierson.
Among the state’s 877 schools, 258 increased their letter grade from last year with several in LMSD increasing over last year.
Rankings for the individual schools in the district are:
Nanih Waiya Attendance Center with an A; Noxapater Attendance Center with an A; Fair Elementary with a B; Louisville Elementary with a B; Eiland Middle School with a C and Louisville High School with a C.
“Every school is different,” said Grierson. “We have to make sure the teachers and principals have what they need to improve.”
Grierson noted the community support really helped all the schools and that Noxapater and Nanih Waiya achieving an A grade was a great accomplishment by the staff, teachers and community.
“The community support has helped all the schools,” said Grierson. “The community supporting the dual credit program has helped and improved our college and career readiness score.”
The dual credit has helped the college and career readiness scores and the graduation rates. Nanih Waiya had a graduation rate of 92.5 percent. Noxapater had a 87.5 and Louisville had a 78.7 graduation rate.
“We are working to get every student to graduation,” said Grierson.
Mississippi’s A-F accountability system evaluates how well schools and districts are performing each year. Accountability grades are based, in part, on how well students perform and progress from year to year on the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) tests for English language arts (ELA) and Mathematics. These tests are aligned to the Mississippi College and Career Ready Standards and are administered annually to students in grades 3-8 and in high school. Overall, students showed statistically significant gains in both ELA and Mathematics from 2017-18 to 2018-19.
Grierson noted that all the teachers and staff were working to grow the students across the board in every area.
“We have to be adaptive to meet the child where they are,” said Grierson. “We are going to work to maximize every child’s potential.”
Student proficiency is rated on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest. The goal is to grow as many students as possible from the 1-3 levels into the 4 and 5 levels.
“Every child that is on level 1 or 2 are the ones we can grow and use interventionist to work with them outside the classroom,” said Grierson. “The interventionist reinforce the standards and do a great job.”
Grierson noted that everyone is excited about the district’s ‘B’ ranking and the teachers, staff and community deserved all the credit.
“Every child can graduate and be prepared for life,” said Grierson. “It is not about the letter grades or numbers it is about impacting lives everyday,’ he added.
“We have great teachers and staff who work hard to prepare every student,” said Grierson.
One of the initiatives Grierson has focused on is having teachers be sure to have open communication with parents and guardians in the homes.
The accountability system places an emphasis on the progress students make in ELA and Mathematics from year to year, particularly the lowest performing 25% of students, and factors in how well students perform on science tests in grades 5 and 8, and the progress that English Learners (EL) make toward achieving proficiency in the English language. Accountability grades for high schools and districts include the four-year graduation rate, student performance on Biology, U.S. History and ACT tests, and student participation and performance in advanced coursework such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, Cambridge, and dual credit/dual enrollment courses.
