NATCHEZ, Miss. (AP) - The company that now runs the Natchez-Adams School District’s Central Alternative School is reporting an increase in student performance in reading and math.
The district signed a contract in May with Chicago-based Ombudsman Educational Services. The company has hired its own faculty and staff. It is providing all technological and learning materials.
Officials told The Natchez Democrat (https://bit.ly/1aC0lll) the contract would the school district nearly $150,000.
As of January, 74 students were enrolled in the program.
Results of Standardized Testing and Reporting assessments at the school showed the standard score on reading tests increased 24 points, from 453 to 477. The scores increased by four points on the math assessments, from 658 to 662.
On the reading tests, seventh-grade students showed the most improvement with those students showing a .8 percent grade level increase growth from 4.3 to 5.1. Those scores mean a seventh-grade student was reading on a fourth-grade level and increased to a fifth-grade level.
Ombudsman Regional Vice President Scott Russell said company officials are pleased with results from the program.
“We’ve seen a lot of growth with the students, and that’s always great for our ultimate plan, which is to help these students get caught up to the correct grade level. We’re also really trying to take away that stigma of what alternative education is in that it’s not always students with behavior issues.
“Reading is something we’re really trying to focus on,” Russell said. “We also need to work on our test-taking skills with students, because some of them still aren’t taking the tests seriously.”
The assessment data also showed middle school students passed 60 percent of total courses and 80 percent of those students were passing two or more classes.
The curriculum the company uses is aligned to Mississippi state standards, as well as Common Core standards, which are nationally adopted standards the district must implement by the 2014-2015 school year.
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Information from: The Natchez Democrat, https://www.natchezdemocrat.com/
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