Pickett County Schools using TISA funding to target math and reading, after students posted gains in several academic areas and K-8 attendance during the past year.
Director of Schools Melissa Robbins said the district’s newly approved annual TISA accountability plan sets goals for student performance. The plan identifies how the district directs state funding toward those priorities.
“We are working toward is improving ELA scores for our TCAP,” Robbins said. “So we are working really hard with our students to make sure that more students can read and understand and write to text than ever.”
Robbins said Pickett County recorded improvement in English Language Arts, math and social studies during the previous year. Teachers use benchmark assessments throughout the school year to measure progress and identify areas that require instructional changes.
“And if we’re not, we want to course correct now, early on in the year,” Robbins said. “But our teachers are doing such a great job of looking at that data and being there for our students and welcoming our students into school and just making sure that students feel comfortable in the classroom.”
Robbins said K-8 attendance also improved, saying the district’s figure dropped from about 20 percent to approximately 18 percent or lower. Robbins said administrators encourage further improvement by recognizing students with strong attendance as well as those who overcome previous attendance problems.
Robbins said the district directs TISA funding toward teacher wages, student books and supplies, academic programs and CTE. Robbins said Pickett County also uses CTE funding to expose fifth through eighth-grade students to potential careers in areas including technology, medicine and veterinary science.
Robbins said students who did not miss a day during the first month of school received an opportunity to paint pumpkins with administrators. The district also recognizes grade levels for attendance performance.
Robbins said math remains one of Pickett County’s priorities after some grade levels fell short of district expectations last year.
“In some of our grade levels our math scores were not what we had hoped last year,” Robbins said. “And so you know we looked at at why some of those things maybe be happening and we are taking the curriculum and our focus documents for math and we’re going back and and digging into that and trying to figure out like why why did it not go as well as we’d hoped and what can we do to help support our students there.”
Early benchmark results this school year show improvement, according to Robbins. Teachers continue to review the data and adjust instruction based on student performance.
“So the plan that we have in place it’s a living breathing document, we can change it as we need to but what we have set appears to be working again at this point this year,” Robbins said.
Robbins said TISA replaced Tennessee’s previous Basic Education Program funding formula. Pickett County also provides a separate portion of the school district’s annual budget.