The Attala County School Board approved updates to the district dropout prevention plan. The Dropout Prevention Plan provides goals, activities, and services necessary to meet the overarching goal of the Mississippi Department of Education to increase the graduation rate to 90 percent by 2025.
Moreover, the plan aims to meet the three goals of the state’s dropout prevention plan: increasing the state graduation rate to 85 percent, reducing the state dropout rate by 50 percent, and reducing the truancy rate by 50 percent by 2021-2023.
As required by state law, each high school with a graduation rate lower than 85 percent is required to develop a graduation-restructuring plan. Since the graduation rates for both Ethel and McAdams high schools were below that threshold for the 2019-20 term, the schools will update and revise action plans and strategies for continuous improvement toward the goal of having all students graduating college and ready for careers.
The 14 dropout prevention strategies:
— Systemic renewal. This district-wide initiative includes teacher recruiting and district provided professional learning.
— School-community collaboration. Also district-wide, this will include collaboration with Life Help school-based counseling.
— Safe learning environment. This involves a district-wide crisis management plan along with a random drug testing policy for all activity-based students at Ethel and McAdams.
— Family engagement. PTO meetings at Greenlee Elementary and Long Creek Elementary, along with district-wide activities outlined under the district and school’s parent engagement plans.
— Early childhood education. Pre-kindergarten and private daycare will be offered for Greenlee Elementary and Long Creek Elementary.
— Early literacy development. Greenlee Elementary and Long Creek Elementary will offer the Scholastic Reading Inventory-Reading Counts program, Study Island, iReady, and Horizons for kindergarten through third grade special education students.
— Mentoring and tutoring. Collaboration with Tougaloo College for after-school work will take place at McAdams. Seventh and 8th grade in-school tutorials will be in place at Ethel and McAdams along with compensatory classes for reading and math and SATP/ACT preparation days.
— Service learning. Vocational education will be available for Ethel and McAdams students.
— After-school opportunities. There will be after-school ACT and SATP prep at Ethel and McAdams, along with language arts and math tutorials for kindergarten through sixth graders at Long Creek Elementary.
— Professional development. There will be district-wide professional learning communities and learning plans and implementation of new science curriculum.
— Active learning. Vocational classes will be made available to Ethel and McAdams students.
— Educational technology. CASE 21 assessments will be utilized district-wide and Study Island, Fast Match, and Scholastic Reading Inventory programs will be used at Greenlee and Long Creek. Read 180, iReady, and Edgenuity will be used at Ethel and McAdams.
—Individualized instruction. Teacher support team interventionists will be available district-wide. At Greenlee and Long Creek, Study Island, special education, a gifted program, and in-and-after-school tutorial assistants will be available.
