By Rupert Howell
South Panola Superintendent Tim Wilder told trustees that although science and history scores did not look well district-wide, math and reading did well in the state-wide accountability testing.
The superintendent’s contract has financial allowances as incentives when a certain level of improvement is reached and South Panola School District Board of Trustee President Sandra Darby reminded board members that a goal had been reached.

“Four out of six schools are labeled ‘B’—We are very pleased with progress of teachers and students overall,” Wilder said Monday at the board’s monthly meeting.

On the other side, Wilder said the graduation rate at South Panola High School, one measure of which high schools are graded, is, “Very troubling.”

The high school was ranked a “C.”

“There’s some work to be done there . . . we’ve got to take care of particular issues,” Wilder said without naming issues other than graduation rate. He also noted that math scores at the high school were not bad.

Wilder explained that had Batesville Middle School been graded last year to the same model used this year, it would have moved up a letter grade. BMS was labeled “C” both this year and last year.

Other schools, Batesville Elementary, Batesville Intermdiate, Batesville Junior High and Pope School were all labeled ‘B’.

Wilder explained that Pope School moved within nine points of an ‘A’ label stating, “Pope School moved from a mid-range ‘C’ to a very high ‘B’.

Concerning Batesville Junior High School’s ‘B’ label, Wilder said it was “outstanding. They had good results last year and are moving very rapidly toward an ‘A’ (label)” stating, “They came within five points of an ‘A’.”