It’s no secret to Petal School District Superintendent Matt Dillon why the district continuously comes out on top in many state rankings – including tops among districts in Forrest and Lamar counties in all 14 categories in the 2018-19 Mississippi Academic Assessment Program.
It’s the district’s people.
“First, we get the best of the best when it comes to those that are educating kids,” Dillon said. “And from there, they’re content experts, and they work extremely hard on their craft.
“Through our Professional Learning Communities, our teachers – along with our administrative and support staff – work daily to look at individual students, to alter lessons as needed, to look at data, to look at multiple points. Then they apply that data to what they’re doing in the classroom.”
STATE TESTS
The assessments, which were released last week by the Mississippi Department of Education, measure student performance in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics for grades 3-8, along with high school English and Algebra I.
State test grades are given on five levels: minimal, basic, pass, proficient and advanced. Proficiency scores are the total of students who received proficient and advanced scores, or Levels 4 and 5.
In district rankings – meaning all schools in the district were counted – the Petal School District came out on top of all local districts in each of the English categories. The district received 71.1 percent proficiency in Grade 3 ELA (fifth in the state); 69 percent proficiency in Grade 4 ELA (sixth in the state); 65.2 percent proficiency in Grade 5 ELA (fifth in the state); 51.1 percent proficiency in Grade 6 ELA (seventh in the state); 58.5 percent proficiency in Grade 7 ELA (fourth in the state); 61.9 percent proficiency in Grade 8 ELA (first in the state); and 69.2 proficiency in English II (second in the state).
With all schools in each district accounted for, the Petal School District also outperformed all local districts in every math category. The district received 74.1 percent proficiency in Grade 3 Math (fourth in the state); 73.3 percent proficiency in Grade 4 Math (eighth in the state); 80.9 percent proficiency in Grade 5 Math (first in the state); 74.6 percent proficiency in Grade 6 Math (first in the state); 80.5 percent proficiency in Grade 7 Math (first in the state); 75.1 percent proficiency in Grade 8 Math (first in the state); and 77.1 percent proficiency in Algebra I (seventh in the state).
In addition, when Science and U.S. History are added in, the Petal School District was the only district in the state that ranked Top 5 in all four categories.
CONNECTING WITH STUDENTS
“Nothing takes the place of how our teachers connect with our kids,” Dillon said. “They care about our kids; they want to make sure all their needs are being met.
“They get the most out of them, because they have a positive relationship with them, and that’s critically important. Also, I think what we’ve done really well is transitioning information from one grade to the next, where we share information from one grade level to the next grade level, and then from one building to the next building. So through our transitions, we’ve done really well of making sure nothing falls through the cracks, whether we’re talking about a test, a curriculum, what books we’re reading – there’s constant communication going on in our district.”
As far as individual schools, Petal School District had two schools come out on top locally in the ELA results. Petal Upper Elementary School scored 65.2 proficiency in Grade 5 ELA, good for first in the area and 38th in the state. Petal High School scored 69.2 proficiency in English II, which placed it on top in the area and fifth in the state.
When it came to individual schools in the Math category, the district placed first in the area in five categories: Grade 4 Math, Grade 5 Math, Grade 6 Math, Grade 7 Math and Grade 8 Math. Petal Elementary School placed first in the area and 37th in the state in Grade 4 Math, while Petal Upper Elementary School placed first in the area and ninth in the state in Grade 5 Math.
The upper elementary placed first in the area and 26th in the state in Grade 5 Math. Meanwhile, Petal Middle School placed first in the area and eighth in the state in Grade 7 Math, as well as first in the area and 11th in the state in Grade 8 Math.
“It’s really a mixture of things, and it really just centers around our people and how they teach to a very, very high standard,” Dillon said. “They understand their content very well, and ultimately, they get the most out of their students through those positive relationships.
“These teachers don’t just work eight hours a day – they work much more than that. They put in extra time, whether it be after school, at home or over the weekend, in preparing the best for our students.”
Another part of Petal’s success is maintaining contact with other successful districts throughout the state, and even in other states. District officials visit other campuses and talk with administration on best practices and other ideas they can implement in their home districts.
“Of course, when information comes out, I get many phone calls from people who want to come do site visits in our district,” Dillon said. “We welcome those, and we try to partner so that we get something out of it as well.
“Then through the Eastern States Consortium, I also have that national networking that takes place too, even though the curriculums might be different. We want all of our students to be successful across the state, and I’m just very, very proud of our team of educators, from teachers to administrators to support staff, being recognized for their hard work.”
Petal School District also works with students that transfer from underperforming districts, to integrate them to the Petal foundation. That process starts with assessing new students, followed by strategically putting them in the classroom best suited for them.
“Then we have additional support services that are provided to them and for them, whether that be our TST process, through mentoring, or whatever the case may be,” Dillon said. “If it’s an academic need, there might be some more tutorial parts, where there’s more small group interaction with that individual.
“We just pour into them as much as we can, and make sure that we put our resources, energy and efforts into those students. If they haven’t been through our system, they don’t know exactly how we operate and the things that we do ‘the Petal way,’ so it does take a little time to acclimate them and for our teachers to grow them.”
Dillon said he was very impressed with the Petal’s consistency in the assessment’s data over the years. With the way the accountability model is structured – being so heavily weighted toward growth – it can be challenging for high-performing districts to meet those marks year after year.
“What I’m most impressed of, and proud of, is that our teachers and administrators control the component that they can, which is proficiency,” Dillon said. “Proficiency is an area where we’re doing quite well in, because we have a good grasp of what it looks like.
“The growth piece is going to differ and vary from year to year, and we have a lot of students that are in Level 3, which is a high level. So we have different challenges than other districts, and to me, I’m big on consistency. So I’m proud to see the consistent results that we have not only from the state test scores, but from all the data points we have – state, locally and nationally.”
