By Toni Miles
The Long Beach School District has been ranked number one in the state of Mississippi. The good news comes on the heels of a Q&A hosted by the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce and headed up by Long Beach School District Superintendent Dr. Talia Lock at the Long Beach Senior Center early Tuesday morning.
“I feel so proud of everything this district has accomplished,” said Dr. Lock. “We have come in second in the state years ago so to be the first in the state for the first time after coming off a pandemic - I know how hard everyone has worked closing those gaps.
“They grew our students tremendously and for the hard work that our students and teachers put in, as well as our administrators, there just aren’t enough words to say how proud I am.”
The Mississippi Department of Education just released the unofficial results ranking the Long Beach School District the number one school district in the entire state based on accountability results. There are 145 total school districts in Mississippi.
LBSD also earned an “A” under this year’s scores, the highest possible academic rating. LBSD’s overall score is 803, up 107 points over the district’s 2019 total of 696. The minimum score districts must reach for A-status is 668. All results are unofficial until approved by the Mississippi State Board of Education at their monthly board meeting on September 29.
Preparations are already underway in Long Beach to celebrate this milestone.
“There’s going to be a huge celebration for sure,” Dr. Lock said. “We are in the works right now with city leaders to make this a big, city-wide celebration because this is something our whole city and community needs to celebrate. This has been a feat accomplished because of the parents, the community and businesses, too. If everyone had not supported what we did this would not have happened. Our teachers work very hard but they need that support and they have had it throughout and for that we are very thankful.”
In the MDE’s 2019 Accountability Results, the last ranking of school districts across the state prior to the pandemic, the LBSD had an “A” ranking at that time,13th in the state.
Because traditional, in-person learning was suspended in March 2020, statewide assessments were not administered for the 2019-2020 school year. During the 2020-2021 school year, state tests were administered, but assessments did not result in accountability rankings for districts.
LBSD has been rated an “A” for five consecutive years of accountability - 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022.
In addition all five of LBSD schools received an “A” rating.
Mississippi’s school grading system considers several indicators, including how well students perform on state tests, whether students are showing improvement on those tests from year to year and whether students graduate in four years, along with other factors.
Dr. Lock credits this major achievement everyone’s daily commitment to excellence.
“Everyday if you do what’s right by the students, at the end of the day you can say you did the best you know how to do, and you can lay your head on the pillow every night, knowing you did the best for the kids and the district,” Dr. Lock said.
Check out our next edition of the Long Beach Breeze for the full story.
