Southern County Schools received an A-weighted district rating for the 2024-25 school year, district staff told the school board on Oct. 2, and presenters warned that planned changes to the state accountability model will make maintaining that grade more difficult beginning with the 2025-26 results.

Ryan Kirkendall, the district staff member who presented the annual accountability report, said the district’s 2024-25 results are calculated from several components: student proficiency in math, ELA, science and U.S. history; students meeting growth in math and ELA; growth for the lowest-performing students; progress for English-language learners; college- and career-readiness measures including ACT performance and participation in accelerated coursework; and graduation rates.

Kirkendall said the district earned high marks in several school-level measures and highlighted local rankings in proficiency and graduation across elementary, middle and high schools. "We are very, very proud, and we want to celebrate that," he told the board.

Why it matters: Kirkendall said the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) and the U.S. Department of Education have implemented or proposed changes that will alter which components count and how letter-grade cutoffs are set. He listed five specific changes the district expects will affect future accountability scores: removal of a stand-alone U.S. history proficiency measure and replacement with a broader "achievement" category tied to diploma endorsements; expansion of college- and career-readiness assessments beyond ACT to include SAT and ASVAB; a new participation calculation for acceleration that counts only one accelerated indicator per student for participation rates; revision of the English-learner component tied to a new assessment; and, most consequentially, a reset of letter-grade cutoffs for district and school scales.

Kirkendall said the reset of letter-grade cutoffs is already under deliberation and that a committee began meeting Sept. 9 and met again Oct. 13. "The biggest and most important change is the letter grade cuts for all the scales," he said. "Based on what we know now, these changes will not impact 24-25 official results that we will present at this time next year. ... It will be much harder for schools in the district to maintain letter grades at that point moving forward."

Kirkendall and board members pointed to several district highlights: the highest graduation rate the district has recorded in his tenure, several schools ranking highly in subject-area proficiency at the state level, and notable placements in local and statewide listings for math and reading proficiency. He also noted that statewide proficiency and growth declined in multiple subject areas for 2024-25, and MDE and state boards have been discussing multiple possible reasons.

Discussion vs. action: The presentation was informational; the board took no formal action on accountability metrics at the meeting. Board members and the superintendent praised staff and academic teams for the results and said the district will continue existing improvement efforts for the 2025-26 school year.

Closing note: Kirkendall asked the board to recognize that changes to the accountability model are ongoing and that future letter grades will be harder to attain under the proposed adjustments. "We are doing everything we can as a school district to stay there," he said.