Linwood Elementary School made significant progress in the last school year, earning high rankings on two different score charts state-wide.
According to the 2016-2017 Kindergarten Readiness Assessment Results for the state of Mississippi, Linwood Elementary School ranked second in the state for schools with the greatest scale score gain. Linwood also ranked third in the state for 2016-2017 highest performing schools.
"We are very excited about it because our teachers work very hard, and for it to actually show on the assessment, it makes us very proud,” said Dr. Shundria Shaffer, school principal.
The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment is used by the state of Mississippi in all public schools to track the learning progress of kindergarten students from the first weeks of school to end of the year. Students are tested a few times a year so that teachers and administrators can see what the children have learned, and what they need to improve on. The test measures the students' growth in the areas of phonics, phonemic awareness, comprehension, paragraph levels, number recognition, some math skills, shapes, sounds, and vocabulary.
The kindergarteners are tested at the end of the year to see if they have made enough progress to advance into the first grade.
Once all the required tests have been completed, the state reviews the scores and ranks each individual school based on the results.
Linwood Elementary School placed second in the state for schools with the greatest gains in their scale scores, meaning that their kindergarteners showed the most progress in learning from August 2016 to May 2017.
Some students who enter Linwood out of a Pre-Kindergarten Program, such as HeadStart, often score well on the first test, showing that they are ready for school. Others are not so lucky and start off the year with a lower score, but have the greatest room to grow.
The state benchmark for students who are ready for kindergarten is a 530, however, many students may start with a score in the 300-400 range. The score needed to move up to first grade is in the 750-800 range, with 900 being the highest performance level.
"These students worked above and beyond in all areas throughout the year," said teacher Rachel Lynch.
In order to prepare the students for the tests, the teachers combine efforts and strategies to reach the needs of their students. Teachers Rachel Lynch and April Ketchum, together with their assistants Hazel Ingram and Mary Alice Williams, worked in a variety of small group and learning center settings to help the students reach their individual learning goals.
These kindergarten students learned computer skills as part of their curriculum to be able to complete their assessments. The teachers used data from those computer tests to change up the learning centers from day to day as needed to help students grow as much as possible.
The teachers were very excited about their scores from the previous school year, which showed them that they did their job well in preparing their students for the first grade.
"Its amazing, because we pour our heart and soul into each one of these kids,” Ketchum said. “We focus on those struggling students just as much as we are on those high achieving students. It feels amazing to know we accomplished our goals. A majority of our students are low income. We are a rural area, and the resources here are not as much as they would be in Madison County or somewhere else, but we make it work."
"It makes you feel successful at your job, like there's a purpose, there's a reason why you’re here," added Lynch. "And love is part of that. It's not just the work in the classroom. It’s the giving of love and care, showing them that we are there for them, not just to teach them, but to show them every day that we love them and we want them there and we are striving for them to do their best, and obviously they did."
These teachers care for their students like their own children by supporting not only their academic needs but emotional needs as well; all in an effort to help the students reach their goals in the classroom.
Using last year’s data, these teachers are prepared to take on a new group of kindergartners and use the same strategies and more to build a foundation of learning for these students as they progress through each grade until they reach graduation.
