The Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School District’s grade dropped from a C to a D in the latest report by the Mississippi Department of Education, while the Carroll County district’s grade rose from a D to a C.
Accountability grades are assigned by the state on an A-to-F scale determining how well students perform on state testing, whether student performance on those tests improves or declines and whether students are graduating within four years. The state also factors in ACT performance and progress made toward English proficiency.
Grades were frozen in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and schools have operated with grades from the 2018-2019 school year since then.
For that school year, Carroll County School District earned a D. The not-yet-consolidated Greenwood and Leflore County districts earned grades of C and F, respectively, and the consolidated district was assigned the higher of the two.
Regarding the improvement in the Carroll County district’s grade, Superintendent Joey Carpenter credits students for “rebounding after achievement declined in the first year of the pandemic.”
Marshall Elementary raised its grade from a D to B. The Department of Education ranked Marshall a little above the halfway mark, at 307 out of 632 schools that test students on the same subjects.
James Johnson-Waldington, who was named the Greenwood Leflore district’s superintendent in February, said he did not yet have sufficient knowledge to make a full assessment of what led to the decline in the most recent grade. However, he said he has been reviewing the data and believes the district “must focus more on reading and English Language Arts at all grade levels and building teacher capacity.”
He attributed the success of some schools to quality leadership and said the district is implementing data-driven and standard based policies to benefit students.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t grow as a district,” he said. “We have to make sure that we’re growing our children, giving them the best education we possibly can.”
The district currently ranks 132nd out of 145 districts and charter schools in the state. Four of its schools’ grades improved, each by one letter grade: Davis, Leflore County and East elementary. schools and Amanda Elzy High. Greenwood Middle School declined from a B to D, and Threadgill Primary, Threadgill Elementary and Amanda Elzy Junior High each declined from D to F.
Leflore Legacy, classified as its own district because it is a charter school, earned a D as its first accountability score.
Dr. Tamala Boyd Shaw, who directs Leflore Legacy, said the grade is a product of the state’s grading accountability methods and the natural growing pains of a young institution. She said it is “not something we should be embarrassed about, especially considering that we got scholars who were sometimes two years behind in grade level.”
Shaw asserted that the school showed notable growth in English Language Arts and math: “We are proud to see the growth our scholars have obtained while recognizing that we still have work to do.”
Shaw added that the state’s accountability grading system does not account for differences in charter schools such as Leflore Legacy, which only served sixth- and seventh-graders at the time of testing. “The Department of Education graded us as a traditional middle school,” she said. “Unfortunately, the department has some nuances it needs to work out regarding charter schools.”
- Contact Katherine Parker at 662-581-7239 or kparker@gwcommonwealth.com.
