MS Coast schools rank above statewide averages during COVID. Here are full results.
Gulf Coast students had lower scores on state standardized tests compared to last year, but remained mostly above statewide averages at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted curriculum.
The Mississippi Academic Assessment Program results, released by the Mississippi Department of Education on Thursday, reported statewide proficiency level decreases in all grades except grade 8 English Language Arts (ELA), which only increased 0.1%.
The 2020-21 school year was the fifth time students took the tests, which are given to students in high school and third through eighth grades.
For the first time since the tests were first administered in 2016, student proficiency decreased in mathematics and ELA, consistent with national trends of decreased academic performance during the almost two years of learning amid COVID.
Scores in the 16 school districts across the lower six counties of South Mississippi fell across most subjects, but the average passing score of 80% was far above the statewide passing rate of 66.49%.
“I’m really happy when I look across the Coast, and we’re proud of the Coastal districts always, we strongly believe in a one Coast motto in education in terms of this being our competitive advantage for economic development, our school systems, so I’m happy to see that our school systems continued to strive last year,” said Dr. Bonita Coleman, superintendent of Ocean Springs School District.
“Teachers didn’t use COVID as a reason to stop doing what they were supposed to do for children every day.”
Ocean Springs found success
Ocean Springs School District is one of only two school districts in Mississippi to be ranked as high performers in all four state test subjects. Coleman called her district’s achievement this year “astounding” amid the pandemic.
“Last year was tough. I think if you talk to any educator, they would tell you last year was the toughest that any of us have ever had to deal with,” Coleman said.
“We stayed focused on instruction because there were so many things last year that we could not control. From whether or not we would have students in quarantine, whether or not our teachers would be well enough to continue teaching day-to-day, but for all practical purposes what I saw last year was a system that is very very conditioned about making sure we keep the main thing and that that is always student achievement.”
Ocean Springs School District successes:
No. 1 high school in the state in Algebra I performance
No. 1 school district in the state for U.S History performance.
No. 1 school district in the state for overall Science performance (includes 5th, 8th, and Biology)
No. 1 school district in the state for overall English-Language Arts performances (includes grades 3rd through English II)
Fifth-grade science teacher Andrea Monghan from Ocean Springs Upper Elementary said she found creative ways to teach during COVID, like creating outdoor science labs.
“I wanted to keep the integrity of my labs, so we found ways to recreate our science labs outdoors to ensure we were able to continue such an important aspect of our curriculum while ensuring a safe environment for our students,” Monaghan said in a Ocean Springs School District press release.
“The students showed incredible resilience and continued to look forward to class each day, even with so much uncertainty around them. The science labs almost served as a ‘getaway’ from the pandemic, even if for only an hour.”
Coast takeaways
Coast districts’ performances, and the degree to which their scores changed from 2018-19 to last year, varied significantly. Within districts, there was also variation in performance by grade level and subject.
For example, Moss Point reported the lowest passing average on the Coast, at 51% for all grade levels across math and English. But fourth and fifth graders saw big gains over 2018-19 in English/Language Arts: the percentage of students passing increased by 34% and 15% respectively.
And Ocean Springs, regularly the Coast’s highest performing district, saw its passing average in math fall from 91% to 77%. Coleman suspected the drop was due to the emphasis the district has been putting on English because of its historically lower scores in the subject.
“For years, our math was higher than our English. It’s like, wherever you put more focus, you see more results and more benefits. So we’ve been really pushing in on English this year, not to say that we weren’t doing that with math, but we always, in this particular assessment, performed well on math,” she said.
In Biloxi, the average percentage of students passing English, across grade levels, fell from 83% to 79.5%; the percentage passing math, from 89% to 83.5%.
Biloxi Superintendent Marcus Boudreaux said the primary challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic was providing instruction amid the constant disruptions of cases and quarantines for students and teachers.
“You never like to see a drop in the scores, but based on the circumstances that everybody in the state and the nation was facing, we knew that was gonna be the case,” he said.
In the Poplarville School District, the average passing rate for math fell from 82% to 70%. In English, it fell from 83 to 77%. Superintendent Jonathan Will said he saw a simple explanation.
“Obviously when students aren’t in class, it limits your ability to educate them,” he said. “COVID caused students to be absent.”
At the start of the school year, about 25% of Biloxi’s students chose virtual learning. By the end, that figure had fallen to 7%, as some chose to return to school on their own and others were required to come back to campus because their attendance or grades had slipped.
Will said he did not know what percentage of Poplarville students participated in virtual learning last year.
In-person learning a factor?
The test scores did not show an obvious link between a district’s approach to virtual learning and its test scores. While Biloxi left virtual learning as an option all year (though limited it to students who were using it successfully), the Jackson County School District ended its distance learning program mid-way through the first semester, becoming the first on the Coast to halt virtual learning.
Its passing average in math was 82%, down from 86%. Its passing average in English was 81%, down from 86%. Those drops were similar to Biloxi’s.
Similar drops also occurred in Gulfport, a district that offered robust virtual learning options. Their district had a passing average in math at 71%, down from 84% and 76.5% in English, down from 82%.
Superintendent Glen East said the virtual learning just needed better troubleshooting but considers the year a success.
“We followed the quarantining guidelines recommended by the CDC and the state to the letter. So we quarantined a lot of students,” East said, noting the success of the amount of students tested throughout the state despite the amount of virtual learning taking place, East said.
“We got them to the computer. In our virtual program, we had some good instruction going on, we had some great things going on, but if the pandemic were to hit today, we would have virtual, but we would be better at the craft of virtual.”
East said that face-to-face instruction is “without a doubt” better for most children, but for the virtual program that has continued this year for some high-risk students, the district has adjusted using what they learned over the past year. The most significant tweak is less lecture instruction and more emphasis on small group work.
Gulfport began school earliest across the Coast, in July. On Friday, the district hit their nine-week mark of the school year, and East said he’s already seen students catch up from the decreased test scores.
“I’m already seeing growth. We’re already seeing kids that were behind on last spring’s test catching up and closing the gap.
Greater consequences for younger kids?
Boudreaux said he has seen the most significant effects of pandemic learning loss on younger children. Kids who are now starting the second grade missed the last three months of kindergarten when schools closed in March 2020. Then their first grade year may have been spent learning virtually, or dealing with frequent disruptions because of COVID-19 cases and quarantine requirements.
“When kids come into kindergarten, many of them are not readers yet,” Boudreaux said. “They need someone showing them how to hold a pencil, how to hold a book. Kids come from varying backgrounds and it takes that classroom structure to grow those kids.”
The federal government allocated billions of dollars in coronavirus relief money to public schools through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER funds) in 2020. Boudreaux said his district is using part of the money to provide extra tutoring and instruction for early elementary students.
Boudreaux said that he “hate[s] the comparison aspect” of evaluating this round of test scores across districts. As always in education, factors beyond school leadership’s control shaped the outcomes.
“There was really no right or wrong answer or way to handle COVID last year,” he said.
By the numbers
There are five levels of achievement on the computerized tests: minimal, basic, passing, proficient and advanced. The state’s goal was to have 70% of students scoring proficient or advanced by 2020, a goal that was not met with the 2020-21 test results.
High school Algebra I
Ocean Springs had the highest passing rate at 96.5%, followed by Poplarville with 95.9% and Stone County School District with 91%.
Ocean Springs had the highest average score and proficiency rate at 77.1%.
Moss Point had the lowest passing and proficiency rates, 67.40% and 27.60% respectively.
Pearl River Central Junior High had a 100% passing rate, while Long Beach Middle had an 98.5% passing rate.
High school English
Ocean Springs had the highest passing rate at 86.4%, followed by Pass Christian at 81.3%.
Ocean Springs also had the highest proficiency rate of 63.8%, followed by Pass Christian at 59.6%.
Moss Point had the lowest passing and proficiency rates with 55.2% and 25.7%.
Pearl River County School District had the most significant decrease from their 2018-19 test scores, by -45%.
Biloxi Public School had the third-highest passing rate at 78%.
All 2020-2020 South MS MAAP test scores
This article and live event is supported by the Journalism and Public Information Fund, a fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
