AMS implements school improvement plan

Armstrong Middle School will be under a school improvement plan for its special needs students under a requirement from the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE).

Armstrong Principal Julie Kennedy and Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District Director of Student Support Services Julie Jones presented the school’s plan to improve English-language arts (ELA) test scores among its students with disabilities. The board unanimously approved Armstrong’s school improvement plan later in the meeting. In total, 160 students with disabilities attend Armstrong across the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

“As required by the Every Student Succeeds Act, MDE identifies schools,” Kennedy said. “We have been identified in the category of targeted support and improvement, or TSI. These are based on subgroups. Armstrong has been identified in the subgroup of our students with disabilities and ELA.”

Kennedy explained that under the requirement, the school was required to come up with a plan to help the students improve their scores. The school must come up with a needs assessment to determine its focus, develop a plan to identify, create a school leadership team of ELA and special education teachers, interventionists, parents, administrators and district representatives. The school is also required to reserve 20 percent of its Title I funding toward supporting the subgroup interventions.
However, Kennedy said the use of the funds wouldn’t affect any other areas. Kennedy will also give the board monthly progress reports at its meetings. Parents will also be notified of the plan.

The district will be required to review and provide feedback on the school’s plan, track progress on a quarterly plan, discuss relevant achievement data, conduct an educational review and establish and engage parents and the community.

The school could exit in the coming school year by showing substantial growth in the group. However, the state has not yet laid out what would be mandatory for AMS to show.

“I pulled every student’s data and took a look at it,” Kennedy said. “I saw some areas of improvement, and our weakest area was in writing, so that’s going to be our focus area.”

She said some of the strengths she found in the subgroup’s writing included determining the meanings of words by context, determining the meanings of figures of speech and using context clues.

She attributed the strengths in part to changes made in the use of special education teachers at AMS. Formerly, the teachers were assigned to a given grade. Currently, the teachers are assigned along subject lines, letting them work more specifically with a larger number of students. She also attributed some of the success to the district’s professional learning communities and a block schedule allowing more instructional time.

“These kids were being taught on their functional levels, but they weren’t being exposed to grade level materials,” Jones said. “Last year we talked to Mrs. Kennedy, and we took it a step further, and we were able to go look at some schools that were doing very well with inclusion and get some ideas from that.”

Some of the practices are also being implemented across the district to ensure the issues are improved from the bottom up.

The board also approved the Peachjar flyer management system, which failed to garner a motion at the board’s November meeting. The item passed 3-2 with nay votes from board secretary Debra Prince and Vice President John S. Brown. The district will have a six-month free trial with the software, after which the district can choose to purchase it for $1,400.

The meeting was also the last for board member Keith Coble, who chose not to seek reelection after more than a decade on the board. A reception was held in his honor prior to the meeting. Jamila Taylor, who ran unopposed for the seat will be sworn in at the board’s January meeting.