Video: Area Residents and Leaders Tour Columbus Schools

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COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – On a district tour, Columbus Schools Superintendent Dr. Phillip Hickman and other administrators are hoping to show a group of parents, teachers, and city leaders that there’s progress in each classroom despite a low test scores.
“What has happened is we don’t just teach to the middle. We have to start where they are and give them the information they need to be successful.”

The group visited several classrooms to see how students are learning.

It’s a quite and productive scene that school officials say just isn’t shown enough to the public

“We have some outstanding students who are ready to learn.”

Hickman believes test scores can’t be the only determining factor in measuring a district’s success. He says tests don’t tell the whole story of what students are learning.

“We need to know where every student is at every second as far as whether they are proficient or not.”

The school district is using progress monitoring tools and reading tests to assess each student’s growth throughout the year. Administrators then track the technology in data rooms like these in each school.

“If a student comes in at a point we want to make sure by the end of the year through the progress monitoring that students progress through the curriculum, and they end up better than where they came.”

Pastor Steven James, who also has a background in education, believes these tools are important in Columbus schools, because companies always examine a school system.

“When companies look at moving to different communities they look at the educational part of it, because they want to make sure their children are being put under an environment where they can be well educated.”

But to continue the progress within the classroom–educators say there must by progress outside school walls.

“Teaching does not take place until learning takes place. The kids have got to get it.”

In Columbus, I’m Renae Skinner. WCBI News

In the 2014 Accountability District and School Results statistics released by the Mississippi Department of Education, the Columbus Municipal School District was rated a D and had a nearly 62 percent graduation rate.