While the Union Public School District slipped from its No. 8 ranking in the state in the 2015-16 school year, the district still had impressive numbers in the Mississippi Department of Education’s accountability rankings.
The Union Public School District finished at No. 25 in the state with a B rating with 646 points. One year after finishing No. 1 in the state, Union Elementary School maintained an “A” rating with 478 total points, finishing 30th overall among the 640 elementary and middle schools.
Union Middle School maintained its “B” rating with 339 total points, and Union High School also maintained its “B rating with 728 total points.
The MDE’s accountability system places an emphasis on the progress students make in ELA and Mathematics from year to year, particularly the lowest performing 25 percent of students.
“With the focus of the accountability system being heavily weighted on the growth of students, especially growth of the bottom 25 percent of students, we continue to focus on individual needs of students,” said UES Principal Deanna Rush. “We use student data to provide interventions that target areas where children have a skill-deficit in an effort to help students ‘close the gap.’ We really did well in that area again this year; it’s just that the year before when we were No. 1, we did phenomenally well.”
The UES students had a 42.3 proficiency percentage in reading and a 56.4 percent proficiency percentage in math.
“Our overall proficiency was also very strong, and these things helped us maintain our A,” Rush said. “It really comes down to good teaching day in and day out. The teachers at the elementary work hard every day to find what works for our kids –- what makes something click — and they use that in instruction. We are constantly working to improve reading, writing, and math skills to not only help our students prepare for the tests but also for success in the next grade and ultimately for high school graduation and beyond.”
UES also had a 99.4 percent participation rate, one of the highest in the state.
“The particular group of students who were fourth graders in that year grew a tremendous amount from their third-grade scores,” Rush said. “This past year’s group of fourth graders still showed lots of growth that was still much higher than the state average, but it just wasn’t at the outstanding level that the previous year’s growth had been. Nonetheless, it was still amazing and something of which we are very proud. In fact, according to my calculations, we were the No. 9 elementary in math growth overall for all students and No. 11 in the state for growth for the bottom 25.”
All of the elementary and middle schools were graded on a point scale up to 700, while all of the high schools were graded on a point scale up to 1,000.
