By Rupert Howell

Although improvement is recorded in many areas and most schools, South Panola School District is labeled on “Academic Watch” in the seven-tiered accountability scale as most district schools did not reach growth goals.

Superintendent Dr. Keith Shaffer discussed rankings and scores during the August meeting of the South Panola School District Board of Trustees noting areas of improvement both needed and attained.
School classifications from best to worst are: Star School, High Performing, Successful, Academic Watch, Low Performing, At Risk of Failing and Failing.

South Panola High School had the highest classification in the district retaining their “High Performing” status while all other schools tested within the district were classified “Academic Watch.”

Four of the district’s five schools tested, (elementary classes of kindergarten and first grade students are not ranked as they have no comparison data from the previous year) actually scored higher on their Quality of Distribution Index (QDI) than in the previous year.

The QDI is an average of percentages  of students’ scoring in four different levels. The levels are: minimum, basic, proficient and advanced. If 20 percent of the students score minimum, then it doesn’t help the QDI. If 20 percent score in the basic category, it’s a plus 20. If 20 percent score in the proficient category, that percentage is multiplied by two and 40 will be added to the score. If 20 percent scored in the advanced category, that percentage would be multiplied by 3 and 60 points would be added to the score.

The growth portion of the ranking measures amount of learning students attain since the previous year’s testing and this is where three of four district’s fell short. Pope School also scored lower than the previous year in the QDI portion of the ranking scoring 145 for 2010-11 falling from 151 in 2009-10.
Batesville Intermediate School went from 139 in 2009-10 to 159 during the most recent testing. That school’s peak was in 2007-08 when it scored 160.

Batesville Middle School’s graph of QDI scores shows a slow steady upward climb for the past four years and 140 current score up from 137 last year.

Batesville Junior High’s scores also show steady increases with its current 141 score compared to last year’s 137 mirroring BMS.

South Panola High School’s current score of 182 is an improvement over last year’s score of 178. High school students’ scores are based on subject area testing where other schools test scores are based on the Mississippi Curriculum Test 2.

Additional testing data may be viewed at the website of the Mississippi Department of Education.