Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A sign seen at Gardner Newman Middle School then posted on social media spurred a discussion about standards and expectations at Troup County Schools. New school superintendent Dr. Rachel Hazel said expectations are higher than the sign indicated, and she plans to hold town hall meetings to see what the community expects.

A photo of the sign in question, seen in a classroom at Gardner Newman, was shared on social media which stated, “End of Year Goal: 32% of 6th grade will meet or exceed standards for 6th grade math.”

Hazel confirmed that she had been shown the image and reached out to the poster to provide context for the sign.

Hazel explained that the sign was not posted all over Gardner Newman, in the front office, or even widely elsewhere. It was in an individual teacher’s classroom and was outdated.

“It was something that [the teacher] had done because it is the school improvement goal from the school straight from the school improvement plan,” Hazel said. “It’s not something that district sets. The school sets their school improvement plan, and that gets submitted to the state,” Hazel said. “It’s not a secret; it’s public information. Anybody can look up anybody’s school improvement plan.”

Hazel indicated that the data from the sign in question was a bit old and was from two years ago.

“We don’t even have our math scores yet this year,” she said.

The 2023 College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) Content Mastery scores from the state board of education indicated that Gardner Newman overall had exceeded its math proficiency target of 46.24 with a score of 46.71, meaning nearly half of the students were proficient in math for their grade level.

Hazel explained that the target numbers are the floor they want to hit, not the ceiling.

“It does not mean that we like to get 32 percent of students proficient in math, and then we’re just going to call it a day,” Hazel said. “If we were to turn in a plan saying our expectation is that we are going to have 100 percent of our kids proficient in math by the end of the year. They would send it back to us and say, this is not realistic.”

“We want 100 percent but the state — the plans we turn into the state as part of the state accountability system — they want to know that we’ve put things in place for continuous improvement.”

Hazel said the outdated 32 percent number was based on the incoming students and how well they did in previous years in math.

“What [the target goal] doesn’t show you is what is being put into place to help those students that aren’t at proficiency yet because we’re going to get them there. It doesn’t show you the strategies. It doesn’t show you the good teaching. There’s a lot of things in that plan that aren’t included in this one goal,” Hazel said.

Hazel said she intends to hold town hall meetings to hear from parents and other stakeholders because she understands there is a desire to increase student performance.

“One of the things I really want to hear from the community is, what does success look like to them? … Does that mean we want to be above the state average? Does that mean we want to exceed our neighboring counties? Does that mean there’s a certain number we’re looking for, and then we’ll know we’re successful? I really want to hear from the community, what their definition of success is so that we can build it together,” Hazel said.