Superintendent Mike Moore expressed his frustration with state testing policies over the past few years to the school board Monday night, explaining the testing changes haven’t been fair to anyone.
“Three years ago we took the MCT2 Test. Two years ago, the scores we just got back, we took the PARCC test, which was a one time test that was done away with forever. It was a horrible test,” Moore told the board. “Most standardized tests have a margin of error of 2%. The PARCC test had a 10% margin of error. That was one of the problems. Another was the internet shut down statewide during testing and that was during our transition to our new internet, which made it twice as bad.”
Mike Moore
The district earned a ‘D’ on the PARCC test.
“I’m not making any excuses. It was a bad test. It’s gone. Statewide did terrible on it,” Moore said. “We’re still under the waiver. We’re still a B district, but as I’ll tell our principals and teachers next week, the waiver is gone after this year.”
Moore said early indications are the district was much improved with the MAP test implemented by the state last year, which he hopes is kept in place.
“We will stay with the same test, the MAP test, supposedly, until they change it again, but I hope they don’t,” he said. “We were the only state in history that had done three tests in three different years. It had never been done and we did it. You can imagine what happened. That’s why we’re having the burnout; why we’re having teachers leaving statewide. It’s why we’re having a harder time finding teachers statewide, because of the uncertainty of it.”
School Board President Danny Harrelson expressed concern about the large number of teachers leaving the district and the new teachers coming in.
“We do have all positions filled except one new speech position,” Moore said, acknowledging it has become hard to find teachers to come to Calhoun, particularly in the critical, tested subjects. “We may have to look at supplements for math and science to attract teachers to this area. I wish the state would do that, but if it continues to be this hard we may have to look at something to help attract teachers to this area.”
Moore noted they didn’t have many retire last year, just a lot of turnover.
“We’re still losing a lot of teachers to other districts then?” Harrelson said.
“Many are just getting out of teaching,” District Financial Officer Jo Clanton said.
“There’s definitely a lot of that, too,” Moore said.
Getting back to test scores, Moore told the board the latest scores from last year’s MAP test given last May should be received most any day.
Moore said he would have Testing Coordinator Raven Hawkins at the board meeting next month to discuss all the scores.
Moore noted that a lot of renovation work is still being completed at various schools prior to next week’s start of the new school year. He said teachers will report on Thursday, Aug. 4 to begin three days of in-service. Students will start on Tuesday, Aug. 9.
The board approved a long list of personel moves as follows:
Personnel - Althea Hubbard hired as teacher replacing Beth Gillis; Carla Warner, Larry Gann, Jennifer Foshee and Judy Doolittle hired as teachers; Linda Gail Haire hired as teacher replacing Valarie Chandler;
Tyler Cossey hired as teacher replacing Sonya Stacy; Kristin Shelton resigned as secretary/store worker and was hired as teacher replacing Kellie Logan;
LaDonna Burt hired as secretary/store worker replacing Kristin Shelton; Brandy Box hired as bookkeeper/secretary MSIS/fixed asset clerk replacing Theresa Huertas who resigned; Megan McCormick hired as teacher replacing Megan Cooper who resigned;
Amanda Baker hired as part time speech language pathologist in newly created position; Brittany Venson-Wofford hired as teacher replacing Melissa Hawks who resigned;
Joshua Gordon hired as bus shop mechanic replacing Brad Cole; Sean Kevin McMahan hired as bus shop mechanic replacing Barry Hood; Chakelia Gladney hired as bus aide replacing Darnell Nabors;
Debrah Jones hired as cafeteria worker replacing Nancy Fugett; Angie Bennett, Kathy Conner, Sue Williams, Mattie Zarazua, Cheyenne Webster and Donna Whaley hired as substitute cafeteria workers; Cassidy Pruett, Thomas Hobson, Christian Wright, Stacie Haimes, Zack Coleman and Anthony King Jr. hired as student cafeteria workers.
The board approved a part-time speech position for Bruce Schools for a masters level speech pathologist to work one and a half days a week. The position will be funded by MAEP.
Rachel Reynolds was hired to work at BES “as needed” before the new secretary starts to help enroll students for the upcoming year.
Student transfers approved were Kerstin Vickers from Grenada to Calhoun, Brooklyn Watts and Caleb Watts from CCES to VES; Paul Freelon Jr. and Ashley Freelon from Coffeeville to Calhoun; Carlie Higginbotham and Bradon Bevels from Houston to Calhoun.
The board approved property and liability insurance quote for FY2017 in the amount of $168,479.