Interim superintendent says criteria for state intervention doesn’t apply to CCSD.
The Coahoma County School District may has a failing grade with the Mississippi Department of Education for two consecutive years, but interim Superintendent Dr. Ilean Richards does not feel there is any immediate danger of the state taking everything over.
“There’s some conversation that they’re getting ready,” said Richards during Tuesday night’s school board meeting. “We have never been approached as a school to be taken over by the state of Mississippi. I have not gotten that communication yet and I don’t expect to get it.”
Richards said there are three criterias for the state taking over a school district and they do not apply to Coahoma County.
“No, we’re not where we want to be, but we’re not in that category unless somebody has heard something from the state department that I haven’t heard,” Richards said.
“We are in school improvement and rightfully so. We have got to go forward. We’ve got to first of all retain teachers.”
Richards said maintaining teachers is a problem everywhere, but the CCSD retained half of the teachers who started with the district in 2018-19. She also said she is looking at improving the graduation rate and wants every student who leaves the CCSD to be prepared for college or the workforce.
Richards has a saying “teamwork makes dreamwork” and administrators are looking at making several improvements to the schools including technological by having cameras in the classrooms.
“We are attempting to make sure we know what is going on in these classrooms when we’re not in the building,” Richards said.
Richards said administrators will be in school two days a week. One of those days will be to train staff. Each district administrator will be an instructional coach at a school.
After making assessments, Richards said areas that need intervention will be identified. Administrators will teach students in those areas with teachers present for “on site professional development.”
Richards said Coahoma County High School had a failing grade three years in a row, improved to a D and is on its way to a C.
“That really kind of made me want to pull my hair out and I have lost quite a bit since I’ve been here. In addition to the work I was doing at the district level, I said we must make the high school our priority because it is not good for a school to be an F more than three years,” Richards said. “That’s kind of a cutline. We needed to do that.”
Assistant Superintendent Angela Johnson discussed some of the data during the board meeting.
A total of 46.3 percent of the lower group was proficient in English Language Acquisition, which was an increase from close to 45 percent one year earlier. In 2018, 67½ percent of teachers in the district taught in their field, but that increased to close to 100 percent one year later.
Johnson talked about how some of the elementary schools were on track to improve. She specifically said Jonestown’s recent grade with the MDE was an F, but it has the content to get back on track and improve to a C. Sherard Elementary School’s grade was a C and it is looking to regain its B status. She praised the improvement at the junior high and high school to earn a D grade.
“That is a 183 point increase,” she said. “That is real growth. I was very pleased to be a part of a team that made it happen.”
Coahoma County Junior and Senior High Principal Cortney Jackson talked about some of her plans during the meeting.
Jackson said the flu, strep throat and pneumonia have caused recent absences. Attendance officer Sheila Ransom is working with students who are not in school.
“She’s been doing an awesome job helping us locate those students,” Jackson said.
Jackson said once a student misses five days of school, he or she is on the radar for chronic absenteeism. The parents are contacted and told the ramifications for not being in school.
Once students get a referral for not being in school, they must have two sessions a week with the school counselor.
“We don’t stop the counseling sessions until that behavior is extinguished,” Jackson said.
There are also in-school suspensions at the junior high and high school.
Jackson said teachers are required to schedule parent conferences after referring a student to the office within the next two or three days to the discuss referral.
There is also “Panther time” during every third period to focus on ELA standards and math.
“During the second nine weeks, we will also start conducting seminars for students who are taking the ACT – any retesters that have to take the English 2, the US History, Biology and Algebra 1,” Jackson said. “So what we’ll do is we’ll use those third period of Panther times where we’ll start pulling those students in and we’ll be giving them some small group and individualized instruction.”
