Officials urge caution with school accountability grades

The Mississippi Department of Education released its letter grades for schools and districts in South Mississippi Thursday, but urged caution in interpreting the results.

The 2015 Mississippi Statewide Accountability System assigns a performance rating of A, B, C, D, or F for each school and district based on a variety of metrics, such as graduation rates; growth in reading and math scores; participation rate of students; and proficiency in reading, math, history and science. The system, used for the first time in the 2013-14 school year, emphasizes student growth, particularly the lowest performing 25 percent of students.

South Mississippi school districts remained on par with previous accountability ratings, with nine out of 10 districts earning an A or B grade last year, again surpassing the state average.

Several South Mississippi schools saw improvement, and no schools or districts fell down in grading, according to the accountability results.

Four South Mississippi school districts retained A grades: Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Pass Christian and Long Beach school districts.

All four schools in the Pass Christian School District retained A grades from 2014. Four of six Biloxi schools earned A grades.

Ocean Spring High School students scored third-highest in the state with 782 points and Vancleave High School ranked fifth-highest with 771 points. Students at Hancock High School, also an A-rated school, earned 751 total points.

The Bay St. Louis-Waveland, Gulfport, Harrison, Pascagoula and Hancock school districts retained their B rankings from 2014.

New standards

MDE officials caution though, that this year’s results reflect the final year of a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education to compensate for the state transitioning to new the College and Career Readiness standards, also known as Common Core standards. The waiver allows a school to retain the letter grade it received in the previous two years year if the 2014-15 grade is lower.

Department of Education spokeswoman Patrice Guilfoyle said state officials are advising districts not to coast on their waiver grade, especially if the non-waiver grade is sharply lower.

“What the superintendent is telling districts is you need to pay attention to the non-waiver grade, because the grade is going to be similar for 2016 and it’s going to be lower,” Guilfoyle said.

Schools will not get a waiver for the 2015-16 results, even though the state is switching tests again. Districts and schools that score an F on the 2015-16 tests could be taken over by a state achievement district if they flunk again the next year.

MDE Chief of Research and Development J.P. Beaudoin also noted the assessments are the result of two “very different tests,” the Mississippi Curriculum Test (MCT2) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers, or PARCC. He advised caution in comparing schools and districts from year to year using this data since the PARCC testing method is based on a higher standard of learning.

Mississippi dropped out of the multistate PARCC consortium under pressure from superintendents who disliked how long the tests took to give, plus from conservatives who opposed the state’s use of Common Core-linked academic standards. The state kept a slightly-amended version of the standards, but changed in the 2015-16 school year to a new test called the Mississippi Assessment of Progress written by a different company.

“Our superintendents have worked diligently to implement higher learning goals in their districts, and the teachers and administrators should be commended for their hard work as evidenced by Mississippi’s performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress,” said Carey Wright, state superintendent of education. “The waiver has enabled them to continue this important work without having to worry about being sanctioned if their test scores dropped during the transition period.”

Wright said schools and districts should pay attention to graduation and proficiency rates between the 2013-14 school year and the 2014-15 school year to determine whether student outcomes are improving.

Standout schools

Four schools in the Pascagoula School District raised their grades since 2014, including Arlington Heights Elementary School from a D to a C, College Park Elementary School from a C to a B, Eastlawn Elementary School from a C to a B and Singing River Academy from a C to a B.

Three Pascagoula schools earned A gradings.

Bay High School in the Bay St. Louis-Waveland School District went up from a B to an A grade.

In the Harrison County School District, two elementary schools moved up in rankings from 2014 to 2015. Bel-Aire Elementary moved up two grades from a D to a B grade and Crossroads Elementary moved up from a C to a B.

The Gulfport School District also saw improvement. Central Elementary went from a D to C grade, Pass Road Elementary from a B to an A, 28th Street Elementary from a C to a B and West Elementary rose two grades, from a C to an A.

The school district issued a press release in response to the grades.

“Gulfport School District is pleased with the overall progress of our students and teachers,” community relations coordinator MC Price Barton said. “Gulfport School District’s accountability results rank the district among the top districts in the state of Mississippi. As a district, we would like to note that we are especially proud of Pass Road Elementary and West Elementary for improving their accountability ratings to ‘A’ levels.

“We are proud of the hard work and dedication of our students and teachers to ensure that Gulfport School District continues to strive to be internationally competitive.”

No South Mississippi school districts received a C grade.

The Moss Point School District received a D grade, the lowest in South Mississippi. The district also received a D in 2014.

Magnolia Middle School and Escatawpa Upper Elementary, two of the schools in the district, retained D grades from the year before. Both schools have new principals this year.

Superintendent Shannon Vincent announced last week the hire of two new principals at Moss Point Kreole Primary and Moss Point High School.

Kreole Primary School’s results were not available. Moss Point High School retained a C grade.

Statewide averages

Official district grades for 2014-15 include 19 A districts, 43 B districts, 54 C districts and 30 D districts.

Statewide, the number of A and B districts remained level from 2013 to 2015. The state saw a decrease in D rankings from 39 in 2014 to 30 in 2015. There was a corresponding increase in the total number of C rankings, showing the highest improvement among school districts moving into the C or above grade categorization. While 99 school districts earned a C or above in 2013, 116 did so in 2015, a change of 13.9 percent.

No Mississippi school district got an F grade in 2015, marking a steady upturn since 2013 when 15 districts and 92 schools were graded as F’s. Only six schools received an F grade, down from 87 in 2013 and from 24 in 2014.

Delayed results

Grades are typically reported in the fall following the end of the school year.

The 2015 results were delayed several months because the state had trouble getting usable data from PARCC. The state also had to conduct a special study before it could compare scores from the two different tests to determine if students’ achievement rose or fell.

Guilfoyle said state officials further delayed the release because districts needed to check results and appeal any problems. She said that process was pushed back until after the state tests were administered in the spring.

“All that would have taken place during the MAP test, and that was too much for most districts,” Guilfoyle said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

This story was originally published July 14, 2016 at 5:04 PM with the headline "Officials urge caution with school accountability grades."