- Board members also heard about improvements in the state’s third grade reading assessment.
Mississippi’s State Board of Education approved a proposed policy to help local school districts remain in compliance with the state’s new anti-DEI law. The Board also heard an update on the state’s third grade reading assessment results.
Erin Meyer, MDE’s general counsel, told the Board that the DEI policy is needed to meet requirements outlined in HB 1193, which the Legislature passed this session. The law aims to ensure that K-12 public school systems, post secondary education institutions and public charter schools don’t provide discriminatory preference in hiring and in the classroom.
“Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programs have become hot button topics in recent years, with many conservatives arguing they foster an environment that actually excludes people based on race, gender, or political beliefs.
“As far as the law goes, the state Board’s responsibility is to establish policies and procedures specific to a model complaint process and investigation procedures that then the local school boards will adopt,” Meyer explained.
The Board approved the policy, which will now be sent to the Secretary of State’s office for a public comment period under the Administrative Procedures Act. Meyer said the public comment period is expected to close on June 10. At that point the policy will come back to the Board for final consideration during the meeting in June and will go into effect on July 17th, one day after the required 90 day period.
“Once they go through their APA process, it then obligates the local school districts to adopt their own policies and procedures based on the minimum requirements the state board has set,” Meyer described. “This is a model complaint investigative procedures policy to guide the local districts in the development of their own.”
School districts will have 90 days to implement their own policy after MDE sends its final version to them.
Reporting requirements on the local and state level are included in the law. Local school districts will submit their annual reports containing information of the number of complaints reported and the subsequent decisions to MDE.
“And then we have an obligation to report to the Legislature annually, and provide any recommendations if they need to make changes to the law,” Meyers added.
Third Grade Reading Assessment Update
In other business, the Board received an update on the results from the state’s third grade reading assessment program for the 2024-2025 school year.
Chief Accountability Officer Dr. Paula Vanderford said statewide 77.3 percent of third graders passed their state reading assessment on the first attempt, which is a record high.
Statewide, 61 of the states’s 138 districts had 80 percent or more of their students pass on the first try. Of that number 7 districts reported 90 percent or more students passed on the first attempt.
“These results are outstanding. The MDE applauds all educators and families across the state that make literacy a priority,” said Dr. Lance Evans, State Superintendent of Education in a press release from MDE. “With a continued emphasis on the science of reading as well as implementation of high-quality instructional materials, we believe Mississippi students will continue to make progress.”
The third grade assessment is required for third graders to move on to fourth grade. If the student does not pass the first time, they have two more attempts to pass the test to move on to the next grade.
Not every district reported positive results this year. Vanderford said there were 7 districts in the state that reported 50 percent or more of their students did not meet promotion requirements.
In all 32,839 students in third grade took the test, the release reports. Students who don’t pass all three attempts may be eligible for good cause exemptions, such as if the student has a disability, if they were previously retained from promotion or if they are English Language Learners, Vanderford added.
Districts showing deficiencies will receive assistance from MDE to achieve better results in subsequent years, Chief Academic Officer Wendy Clemmons described. She said the assistance will be in the form of guidance and support on effective reading intervention efforts, development of teacher schedules to set aside time for intervention and effective use of high quality instruction material.
“Not only are we trying to assist them in training them on how to intervene and instruct, but how do you set that up in your day,” Clemmons elaborated. “Because sometimes that can be a challenge. If you don’t have the …uninterrupted time then it really does negate what you’re trying to do with your students.”
She added that there will be a push for districts to utilize more face-to-face reading intervention methods over computer based learning to address deficiencies.
“That’s a big difference, okay,” Clemmons described. “So really trying to work with teachers, and administrators, to understand that more is not always better. That if you really have to have face-to-face, evidence-based reading interventions for students who are below grade level.”
Jeremy Pittari
