As the holiday breaks approach, officials from the Petal School District have released the district’s 2020-2021 Accountability Dashboard, an optional annual measure that assesses five indicators across the district.
Those indicators are: Student Learning, College and Career Readiness, Hope and Well-Being, Financials and Teacher Quality.
“This is a dashboard that we’re not required to put out, but this is something that we believe is important for us to tell our story,” school district superintendent Matt Dillon said. “We feel like these five indicators are so important for us, in our district, to have data points to show the success that we’re having.
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“This is a way for us to share with our stakeholders the good things that are happening across our district, and share some key and important data points that people can refer to and look at.”
Indicator I: Student Learning
According to the first indicator, the Petal School District is the No. 3 district in the state when it comes to English Language Arts assessments, and the No. 1 district in Mississippi in state math assessments.
As far as demographics, the district, which for the 2020-2021 school year was home to two National Merit Finalists, is 74 percent white, 18 percent Black, 7 percent Hispanic, 1 percent Asian and 0 percent “other.” The district is home to 1,031 students at Petal Primary School, 547 students at Petal Elementary School, 689 students at Petal Upper Elementary School, 721 students at Petal Middle School and 1,165 students at Petal High School.
There are 767 students in Special Education, 459 in Gifted (K-6) and 173 in ELL (K-12).
The Student Learning Indicator also shows factors such as Mastery Prep Practice ACT, 10th Grade Mastery Prep, Average Daily Attendance, and PSAT scores.
Indicator II: College and Career Readiness
The Petal School District boasts a graduation rate of 95.1 percent, well above the state’s 87.7 percent, with $6.2 million in scholarships.
“To see our graduation rate increase over the last six years has been exceptional,” Dillon said. “Then you see the scholarship dollars and opportunities (and that’s exciting).”
For the 2020-2021 school year, the district saw 339 Advanced Placement courses taken with a 57.9 percent pass rate, a 375 dual credit enrollment with a 96.3 pass rate and a CTE enrollment of 123 with a pass rate of 29.3 percent.
Indicator III: Hope and Well-Being
According to surveys, 78.4 percent of Petal School District students say they “feel safe,” 70.5 percent say they “feel engaged,” and 82.8 percent say they participate in an extracurricular activity. Parent satisfaction with the education offered in the district is at 92.8 percent, with the school district being ranked No. 1 in the state overall by the Mississippi Department of Education.
“You see the qualitative data, which is equally important to me, to know from survey results, that students feel safe,” Dillon said. “Do families and stakeholders feel like they’re getting a quality education?”
Indicator IV: Financials
Funding for the district comes from 16th Section, federal, state and local sources. District budgets are broken down into initiatives such as instructional, operations/transportation, non-instructional, administration, technology and debt.
Indicator V: Teacher Quality
The Petal School District boasts 53 National Board Certified Teachers, along with a teacher attendance of 95.1 percent throughout the district.
One hundred and twenty-eight teachers have a bachelor’s degree; 198 have a master’s degree, 25 have a specialist degree and seven hold a doctorate degree.
“We talk a lot about success, and our success is based off our teachers,” Dillon said. “We have a large majority of our teachers with advanced degrees.
“Then you see the numbers where we’re exceeding state expectations, but also where we’re highly competitive at the national level – CTE and all the other factors that we look at are so important when we tell our story.”
