South Side Elementary celebrates A-rating for 2nd year in a row
WEST POINT, Miss. (WCBI) – The West Point Consolidated School District celebrates a milestone.
After becoming the first A-rated school in the History of the district, South Side Elementary School was named an A-rated school for the second year in a row.
“Achieving an ‘A’ in academics is like achieving the state championship in sports or the gold medal,” said former Principal Casey Glusenkamp. “They achieved the highest achievement that they could.”
These scores are from the 2023-2024 school year.
Former Principal Casey Glusenkamp came back to celebrate this accomplishment with the students.
“We even earned more points than we did the first time,” Glusenkamp said. “I talked to them about how they are an A because of their hard work, and we want to maintain that. We want to keep going and we want to continue to grow, and keep seeing big things from our kids.”
West Point Mayor Rod Bobo said this accomplishment is vitally important for the city.
“One of our big tickets is always economic development and trying to recruit industry, and one of the things industry more often looks for or asks about is the quality of your schools,” Bobo said. “These are elementary students, so, the foundation is laid now. These students are achieving at a high level now, which leads me to believe that they will continue to do that as they progress through their scholastic careers. If we’ve got good quality schools and good quality education, that only helps or recruitment efforts to bring jobs and industry to the city of West Point”
Superintendent Dr. Jermaine Taylor encouraged the students to keep striving for excellence.
“Half of it is believing,” Taylor said. “We believe that next year we’ll be right here celebrating their 3-peat.”
And the upperclassmen were there to support them.
“Believe it or not, they look up to them, when the football team, the cheerleaders, the band, softball, all those athletes come, to these kids they are like celebrities, and they look up to them,” Taylor said.
“I remember being here when they were younger, to come back and celebrate, it means a lot to the community, Like said, the whole community is rooting for our kids,” Glusenkamp said.
Principal Lucy McKellar said they are not stopping there, and they will push the students to achieve this standard for the 2024-2025 year and in all they do.
“I hope today that they feel the appreciation from the community and feel how important it is to be an ‘A’,” McKellar said. “The students are working hard and hopefully, we can get an A again. I hope this just becomes a tradition for West Point that not only are we an A at South Side, but Church Hill is an A, other schools are an A, and it just flows through the whole district.”
Glusenkamp said her advice for other schools is to keep working, keep growing, and always do what is best for the students and things will eventually fall into place.
