10 of 15 schools get ‘A’ rating
Ranking as the fourth best performing public school district in Louisiana, St. Charles Parish Schools Superintendent Felecia Gomez-Walker said their success is partly based on how students scored on major tests like the ACT.
It’s why the school system maintained it’s “A” rating for the 2015-16 year, and why Destrehan High School’s grade rose from a “B” to an “A, according to Louisiana Department of Education’s annual district and school performance report.
Gomez-Walker said the success comes from assessing how students are performing in subjects before they take the actual tests, like ACT, LEAP and EOC, at the end of year.
Assessing their progress allows administrators to step in when necessary to build on strengths and assist if weaknesses are identified, although she emphasized they do not “teach the tests.”
Keeping lessons engaging and relevant keeps students interested, which puts a great emphasis on professional enrichment with teachers, the superintendent said.
“The fact that we maintained an ‘A’ is extremely important, but very often what you’ll find is districts achieving at a very high level find it harder to continue to improve,” Gomez-Walker said. “We not only maintained that ‘A’ status, but grew by 5.4 points. It has to be our students performing on the assessments such as LEAP, AP and EOC.”
When the report results were announced, Gomez-Walker said she expected the system to maintain its current status.“We predicted that because we have a core assessment system … so we are monitoring student performance along the way,” she said. “So when the students do take the state tests, we have a pretty good idea of how they’re going to perform on those tests.”
The school district ranked fourth among the state’s highest performers in Zachary, Central and Livingston parishes.St. Charles Parish schools gained 5.4 points over the previous year’s score of 103.9, which also ranked it as an “A” performer.
Of the system’s 15 schools, 10 got an “A”, four a “B” and one a “C.”
As of this report, the parish’s “A” schools are Allemands, Lakewood, Mimosa Park, Norco, R.J. Vial, New Sarpy and Schoeffner elementary schools; J.B. Martin and Harry Hurst middle schools, and DHS.
“The teachers are ecstatic,” Gomez-Walker said of DHS’ improved score. “They’re very proud of their achievement and the students have a sense of pride.”
The system’s “B” schools are St. Rose Elementary; R.K. Smith and Albert Cammon middle schools, and Hahnville High School.
It has one “C” school – Luling Elementary, which missed a “B” score by 9/10ths of a point.
Gomez-Walker also attributed the system’s continued success with the use of the Eureka Math program, which is in its fourth year in the school system.
“There is learning by teachers along the way, and there is monitoring with the assessments,” she said. “We see a system in math that is comprehensive and getting very positive results.”
Louisiana schools overall fell from a “B” or 88.8 score to a “C” or 83 score in this same school year.
School performance scores are based on several factors for elementary and middle schools, including students LEAP scores. High school performance scores are determined by graduation rate, test grades, performance on end-of-course exams and on the ACT.
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