Evangeline Parish school district remains a B

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Even with a new and stricter formula to determine a school’s performance score for the 2017-2018 school year, the Evangeline Parish School District’s overall performance letter grade remained a B.
Evangeline Parish School Superintendent Darwan Lazard, said, “I’m very proud of our teachers, administrators, and all personnel who worked with and challenged our students to grow academically during the 2017-18 school year.”
Due to the change in the formula used to calculate a school or district’s performance score, the state education department provided a calculation of how school’s and district’s would have performed if the SPS and DPS would have been determined using the previous formula. Those results, along with this year’s individual school performance score can be seen in the chart on the right.
Therefore, while it appears every school and the district’s performance score dropped, that is not necessarily the case.
Lazard said, “Despite major changes in the system used to judge how students and schools are performing, students in Evangeline Parish grew academically.”
He then explained, “Last year, the Louisiana Department Of Education (LDOE) adopted much tougher standards while, simultaneously, decreasing the number of points each student could earn for reaching certain levels on state tests. For example, a student who scored at the ‘Mastery’ level in 2017 was awarded 125 points by LDOE, but a student scoring ‘Mastery’ in 2018 received only 100 points, representing a 20% decrease.”
Last year’s district performance score was a 92.5 B, and this year’s district performance score was a 76.4 B. However, if the 2016-2017 score was converted using the new formula, the district’s performance score would have been a 75 B.
Lazard said, “Our district grew when many others in Louisiana did not and I attribute our growth to our hardworking and outstanding educators. We will continue using the state’s Tier One curricula (e.g. Eureka Math and ELA Guidebook), providing on-going professional development trainings for our instructional staff and making resources available that positively impact classroom instruction.”
In total, Evangeline Parish has seven school’s who earned a school performance letter grade of a B and four who earned a C. In total there were only a four schools in the entire state to earn A’s.
This year’s performance score and grades are some Lazard feels should parents should celebrate.
Lazard said, “Although I’m sure the parents, families and communities of Evangeline Parish will join me in celebrating our great progress, all EPSB Schools will continue “Climbing To The Top!”