The Blytheville School District gave its Report to the Public on Oct. 22, during the monthly School Board meeting.
The district's priorities each year are to improve student performance, student attendance, parental involvement, student behavior and to increase its overall graduation rate.
"We are doing targeted interventions in classes, have math and literacy interventionists in every school, and have regular RTI meetings to monitor the progress of every child in the district and increase performance," said District Curriculum Coordinator Sally Cooke. "We have formed a district attendance committee and are working with the Make Every Day Count organization to help parents and students see the positive impact that good attendance makes on a child's performance. Our district attendance rate was 95.78 percent last year."
Cooke also said the district had a surge in parental involvement, due in large part to the efforts of its parental involvement facilitators on each campus, as well as the organization of the PICK Blytheville group. The district's graduation levels were also up, exceeding its Annual Measurable Progress with 76.72 percent of students graduating.
This year the Primary School is a Needs Improvement school, serving as a feeder school for Blytheville Elementary -- a Needs Improvement school which is "Achieving" in literacy, but "Needs Improvement" in math. The Middle School is a Needs Improvement Focus school, ranked as "Achieving" in literacy, but "Needs Improvement" in math. BMS met its year-one exit criteria for a focus school in 2011-2012, but did not meet the year 2 criteria in math in 2013. Blytheville High School is a Needs Improvement Focus school, being given a "Needs Improvement" score in literacy and math, and did not meet the year-two exit criteria.
Only the third-, fourth- and eighth-grade math classes had more than 50 percent of its students score "proficient" or "advanced" last year -- 72- and 56-percent for third and fourth and 100 percent for eighth-grade algebra.
Cooke said the literacy goals for third to fifth grades, sixth to eighth grades, and the 11th grade will be met by the end of the 2013-14 school year, likewise with math goals for third to fifth and sixth to eighth.
"Our goal is to achieve AMO in all schools in literacy and math," Cooke said.
The district's Wellness Committee meetings are held quarterly. The committee includes a student, parent, board member and community stakeholder, as well as staff members. Physical education and fitness activities are held the required number of minutes in each building, vending machines on the secondary level currently aren't opened until 30 minutes after the last lunch period, but are in the process of being removed completely and no more than nine days are permitted for alternative foods.
Parents are also encouraged to promote wellness within their homes.
cpinkard@blythevillecourier.com