St. Mary schools maintain B grade; move up in state rankings

St. Mary Parish’s public schools not only maintained their district B state accountability score in 2015, but they moved up in relation to the state’s other 74 districts.
The St. Mary school system now ranks 22nd in Louisiana, according to information released Thursday by the Louisiana Department of Education.
St. Mary Superintendent Leonard Armato noted that the overall scores confirm that students and teachers faced a tough transition to more rigorous standards and to the new PARCC tests.
“Our instructional team has already implemented strategic improvement plans and formulated practice test plans for the Spring 2016 testing session,” Armato said in a press release. “Our administrators, teachers, and students will receive all available resources to ensure student success.”
The school performance scores of all 23 St. Mary schools were combined to give the school a combined score of 91.1 on a scale of 150. That’s up from 90.4 in 2014 and better than the 2015 statewide score of 88.8.
Four individual St. Mary schools earned A grades: Bayou Vista Elementary (106.9), Berwick High (106.7), Berwick Junior High (105.2) and Aucoin Elementary (100.7).
One school, J.A. Hernandez Elementary, had a score of 47.4, which is below the minimum score required by the state. But it was give a D grade under the grading curve established by the state for the PARCC transition period, the school district said.
Earning B grades were Morgan City High (99.1), Wyandotte Elementary (93.4), Berwick Elementary (90.4), Centerville High (90.0), Norman Elementary (86.7) and Patterson High (85.5).
The St. Mary C schools were Morgan City Junior High (81.7), Hattie Watts Elementary (80.7), Shannon Elementary (80.1), Maitland Elementary (77.2), B.E. Boudreaux Middle (74.5), Franklin Junior High (74.0), West St. Mary High (74.0), Patterson Junior High (73.7), Franklin High (72.9), and Foster Elementary (71.3).
These schools received bonus points “for students identified within the lowest-performing subgroup who exceeded growth expectations on accountability testing in 2015,” the school district said. They are Aucoin Elementary, Bayou Vista Elementary, B.E. Boudreaux Middle, Berwick Junior High, Berwick High, Centerville High, Foster Elementary, Franklin Junior High, Franklin High, Hattie Watts Elementary, Maitland Elementary, Morgan City Junior High, Morgan City High, Norman Elementary, Patterson High, Raintree Elementary, West St. Mary High and Wyandotte Elementary.
Three schools in St. Mary Parish qualify for being named Top Gains Schools for meeting school growth targets and for achievement by students in tested subgroups. They are: Centerville High School with a growth of 16.7 points, Franklin Junior High with an increase of 12.8 points, and Norman Elementary with a gain of 11.6 points.