Tallassee’s Southside Middle School went from a 75 to an 85 in one year on the state’s report card.
SMS principal Brittany Spencer said staff and students improved the score by working on the big three — attendance, communication and practice.
But the school is not settling for a mid-B the next time the report card comes out.
“With attendance right now, we have only four students who are chronically absent as compared to 17 at this time last year,” Spencer said. “We're still moving in a great direction when it comes to that last year we made huge gains in that area that really helped with improving on that 10 point gain.”
The improvement in attendance has continued on the same basic program of incentives such as pizza parties and communication about chronic absenteeism with parents and students.
“One of the most impactful things we've done with that have been student conferences,” Spencer said. “We are bringing them in and having that conversation.”
The conversation explains chronic absenteeism and its effects on education. Chronic absenteeism is when a student misses more than 18 days of school in a year — excused or not.
The basic conversation explains student attendance directly correlates with student success and learning.
“We feel like that's making a difference,” Spencer said. “We're continuing that as well.”
The effort appeared in test scores used for the state report card.
According to the Alabama State Department of Education, SMS improved its chronic absenteeism score from a 23.83 in 2023 to 10.92 in 2024. At the same time academic achievement improved from 60.92 to 66.58 and academic growth improved from 88.15 to 100.
In 2023, the school was listed as an at risk school because of the subpopulation of students with disabilities. The report card in 2023 noted 19.52% of students were in the subpopulation and it grew in 2024 to 23.17%.
The subpopulation mainly represents students with individual education plans and 504 plans.
“It means we had a sub-population that scored in the bottom 5% of all Title One schools,” Spencer said.
While it sounds bad, Spencer said the school is continually addressing the needs of students with IEPs to make improvements and get well above the 5% threshold and get off the list next year.
Spencer said school administrators have done a better job in showing teachers the difference between what is required in the state curriculum and what is being tested for the report card.
“A lot of our teachers are having big eye opening moments when they take a look at the difference between their standards and what is being addressed on the ACAP,” Spencer said. “Of course, we are teaching all standards, but we do have a bigger emphasis on certain areas now. We've been able to drill down those standards and find out which ones are going to be addressed more heavily on the ACAP test.”
Teachers and staff have been focusing on fundamentals to ensure students have good foundations in learning to build on.
“We also are continuing to implement our STEM initiatives when it comes to boosting our math and science,” Spencer said. “We're also obviously placing a focus on our English as a second language learners.”
Staff is also using multiple opportunities to allow students to practice tests before the real ACAP comes after spring break. The practice tests allow administrators almost instant access to results to see where programs need to be tweaked to aid student growth.
Spencer said the one-on-one meetings with students and parents would continue as well.
“It was one of the most powerful things I've ever been a part of as an educator,” Spencer said. “I had students talking to me immediately about the goals that they wanted to set for themselves and how they wanted to do better for themselves.”
