North Panola School District: Team Effort

K12, teachers and administrators overcome doubt to achieve success

“Nothing Less Than Our Best … All Day” and  “Only Your Best Is Accepted.”

These are the respective mottos of Crenshaw and Green Hill elementary schools in North Panola District, Miss. The student body of these schools is 99 percent low-income African American. Though the state’s public schools have met federal No Child Left Behind requirements, Mississippi continues to sit at or near the bottom of national performance rankings. More than 70 percent of Mississippi students attend Title 1 schools.

Where some doubters saw insurmountable odds to educate—even elevate—Mississippi public school students, state officials and district administrators saw an opportunity to embrace new ideas and methods toward the goal of greater academic success.

Such was the case in 2008 when North Panola partnered with K12 to tackle underachievement in math and science.

The state allocated a special appropriation for the project, part of which was used to purchase 44 interactive whiteboards installed in every district elementary and middle school science and math classroom. The K12 team consisted of Susan Furick, K12’s director of classroom activities, a fulltime on-site learning coordinator, and an online teacher. District math and science teachers were trained by this team to use the K12 curriculum and the whiteboards.

District officials committed themselves to the project, doing whatever was necessary to achieve success. Still, getting every district teacher and principal behind the initiative took time. No stranger to bureaucratic takeovers and understandably leery of the stream of vendors and consultants who had come and gone over the years, skepticism was expected. However, once teachers and principals realized the K12 team was onsite and fully committed to helping students grasp tough math and science concepts and elevate test scores, the program took off.
 
Key to the program’s success was an emphasis on teacher professional development. “We showed them the research—that teachers are the No. 1 factor for student achievement, and we worked with teachers who may not have had enough experience or were deficient in some aspects of math and science,” explained Furick. The commitment soon became evident. Parents and families displayed excitement for the program and lauded its potential.

To ensure greater student achievement, Furick created written benchmark tests that students took every nine weeks. Because the K12 curriculum and model is mastery-based, students are required to grasp core principles before they move forward—and move forward they did.

After one year, the district performance increased up to 15 % points compared to the state.

“Given the fact that these students live in poverty, we raised expectations and pushed them to succeed,” said Furick. “They loved the interactive whiteboards and that helped to keep them engaged. A whole new world was opened up to them.”