How this district made a great leap in state rankings
Many districts continue to experience the pandemic’s negative effects on student achievement levels. Johnston County Public Schools Superintendent Eric Bracy’s proactive approach to curriculum helped keep students on track.
After taking the helm in 2020, Bracy invested in a comprehensive curriculum and high-quality resources, including menus for acceleration and remediation. The results are significant.
The North Carolina district has risen in state rankings from 83rd to 35th for grade-level proficiency. Additionally, it reduced its number of low-performing schools from 15 to one.
“When I got here, the benchmarking system was not in place,” Bracy says on the latest episode of District Administration’s “Talking Out of School” podcast. “You had pockets of schools that were benchmarking their students. So, we invested heavily into making sure all of our students were being assessed, taking the same assessment per grade level, and then we would come together and look at the results.”
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Bracy says the district used ESSER funds to purchase a research-based curriculum aligned with best teaching practices. He also implemented district-wide benchmark assessments and established data meetings with senior leadership to analyze trends in student performance.
To learn more about how Bracy spearheaded academic success through the pandemic, listen to this episode of “Talking Out of School” on Podbean, Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or by using the widget down below:
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