Representatives from the Mississippi Department of Education revealed their initial findings to the Calhoun County School Board Tuesday night following their review of Calhoun City High School recently as a result of the school earning an F in the most recent state accreditation.
Dr. Laura Jones and Lillia Jones presented the board with an outline of their findings including what they considered “major challenges” and “strengths” of the school.
The strengths included a very disciplined student body and well maintained and safe school facility.
“The school was very orderly,” Lillia Jones said.
Lillia Jones
The areas they pointed out as most concerning were a lack of community involvement and the need for more rigorous and higher-order thinking skills in teaching practices.
“We want teachers to dig, ask students how they came up with that answer,” Lillia Jones said. “We found too much lecturing, just asking students questions and then waiting for a simple answer.”
Dr. Laura Jones outlined the process from the state regarding the the schools’ F accreditation. She said Calhoun City is one of 92 schools in the state to receive an F, but noted the school narrowly missed avoiding the failing grade.
“Calhoun City received an F by just a few points,” Dr. Jones said. “It was really close.”
She explained to the board that the focus now is to work extremely hard to get Calhoun City out of the F grade by next year. She then cautioned if that doesn’t happened, it comes with dire consequences down the road.
“If we don’t improve this grade, in year two the law requires that all travel be restricted to the minimum and board members per diem is reduced by half,” Dr. Jones said. “We also have to deliver a letter to the school informing them they are all, administrators and teachers, fired if they don’t get out of F status.”
She said the state currently has 50 schools in year two of an F.
“We’re working awful hard,” Calhoun City Principal Mike Ray told the board. “We have tweaked a few things where we needed to change. We’re going to get these scores back to where they need to be.”
Mike Ray
Ray outlined many of the things the school has been doing and has adjusted to try and improve test scores.
He said they give up to two and three practice tests every semester and have regularly been bringing students in for tutoring.
“We’ve pulled students out of regular classes, which we don’t like to do, to prepare for state tests upcoming because if they don’t pass the state test they won’t graduate,” Ray said.
He explained they set aside the last block to remediate because the school had such a high number of kids that’s didn’t pass state tests.
Ray addressed the request from Jones for more rigorous teaching practices in the classroom saying the schedule required for state testing doesn’t allow for much variation for teachers.
“With state tests we have to stay on track,” Ray said. “There’s not a lot of time for teachers to be as creative as they would like to be. I’m not trying to blame anything, that’s just the way it is.”
Board members expressed concern about the lack of community involvement/support.
“How do we reach a community that isn’t showing concern,” School Board member Danny Harrelson said. “I’m surprised we don’t have parents here tonight wanting to hear this first report.”
“We have to find a way to get people into the school,” Lillia Jones said. “We can’t have parents not realizing their child is not on track to graduate in April. We need them involved sooner.”
“We may need to look at other communities and see what they’re doing to stimulate parents to get more involved,” School Board member Whit Casey said.
“We’re looking at several areas to reach out to the community and get them more involved,” Ray said. “We certainly need parents taking a more active role.”
“We’re not going to stop working, that’s for sure,” Ray said. “We don’t intend on this happening again.”
“We need everybody,” School Board President Billy McCord said. “The school can’t do it alone.”