George County High School has made history for the second time in a row making 816 out of 1,000 points on the state accountability model.
According to Pricincipal Sid Taylor, a big part of this improvement is proficiency and growth.
“That gets us more points. For example, a student can pass a state test, but if they’re not proficient, we don’t get as many points so we’re kind of changing our mind shift now,” Taylor said.
Another large factor is the graduation rate.
“It helps our A-rank status tremendously because the higher the graduation rate is the more points that we get on our accountability model,” Taylor said.
Test scores are not the only important reason for being where the school is. School culture and leadership are also important elements.
“Are people happy to be here? … Does this feel more like a prison or does it feel more like a nice place to come and learn? … Culture is very important and it all starts with a leader,” Taylor said.
Along with the ranking, the English state test scores have increased greatly, according to Assistant Principal Brittany Brown.
“Over the past three years, our proficiency on state test performance has increased about 38 percent to 51 percent estimated,” Brown said.
She also stated that on the surface that growth may not look like much, in reality it is the opposite.
“When someone looks at those numbers, they may say ‘well that’s not too big of a jump’, but if you look that 51 percent makes us competitive and comparable with other top-performing high schools in the state of Mississippi,” Brown said.
As a whole, the school has been emphasizing having proficient state test scores, but there are many things teachers have to do to help their students achieve their goals.
According to English II teacher Theresa VanVleck a few exercises her students do include selections test, data checks and so much more.
“We use the selection test questions, and we read texts every week. In addition to the unseen text on our tests. We use our scaffolding document so that students are more familiar with the standards,” VanVleck said.
While those are important things to do with students, disclosing them to arrays of questions is extremely important as well, according to VanVleck.
“The best thing I can do as a teacher though is to expose you guys to as many questions as possible, what the test questions will look like, in different ways, even though it all falls under a particular standard. You could have five different ways a question can be written,” VanVleck said.
Not only did the high school have an “A” ranking, the district, as a whole, did as well.
Benndale Ementary School was the only other school ranked an “A”. Four of the elementary schools were ranked a “B”, including Central, L.T.Taylor, Rocky Creek, and Agricola. Lastly, the middle school and L.C. Hatcher was ranked a “C”.
Although superintendent Wade Whitney stated that it is difficult to maintain the successfulness of the schools, there are a few things students can do.
“At the end of the day, the first thing you have to do is make students come everyday because there’s a direct correlation between academic success and attendance,” Whitney said.
On top of attendance, it is important to have high quality teaching, monitor the standards being taught in class, as well as the end of the quarter test (EQT).
“All of the EQTs are aligned to the state’s standards. So that it keeps us on track, so that we’re teaching the state’s standards all year long,” Whitney said.
In the end everyone should be proud of this accomplisment.
“We’re really excited and proud,” Brown said.
