Historic Marks for Schools
“This work was the result of setting a goal, looking at deficit areas, and everyone believing this was possible,” said Director of Schools Dr. Christy Smith.
Smith’s celebratory statement comes as Hardeman County Schools reached benchmarks they never have before.
The work began last year, as Hardeman County Schools embarked on a journey to focus on goals that are part of the Five Year Strategic Plan.
“As always, the safety of students and staff is first priority. However, academically, the goal has been focused on elevating student performance and increasing awareness and opportunities for students,” said Smith.
One of the goals of this transformation was to increase the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) scores of the district and schools. TVAAS is a core component that measures student growth and school accountability… a comprehensive assessment tool used to measure student progress over time. It evaluates how much individual students have grown academically within a given time frame, taking into account various factors such as prior performance, demographics, and comparisons to others in the state. TVAAS scores provide valuable insights into a school’s effectiveness in terms of fostering student growth, indicating that students are making progress, at or above expectation, compared to simply looking at mastery proficiency.
Tennessee began utilizing TVAAS as an accountability measure in 2010. Since that time, Hardeman County Schools has struggled to demonstrate growth levels similar to other districts in the state. For the first time since TVAAS designations have been assigned, Hardeman County Schools is proud to announce a designation of Level 3 Composite, which means meeting overall growth expectations.
“Hardeman County is one of eight Tennessee counties designated as ‘distressed.’ According to the state of Tennessee, “Economic status designations are identified through a composite measure of each county's three-year average unemployment rate, per capita market income, and poverty rate. Based on these indicators, each county is then categorized as distressed, at-risk, transitional, competitive or attainment,” said Smith.
But even with the designation as a distressed county, Dr. Smith says they haven’t let that deter the mission.
“In staff meetings, we have talked about the fact that our students and staff are not level one, and everyone believed we were better than that,” says Smith. “TVAAS is a very complex formula that takes things into account such as projection and comparison to state growth.”
“Our schools and students have made improvements in the past, but we didn’t grow enough in all areas to overcome Level 1 status…but it finally happened. This is the work of all staff – supportive board members who believe in the district, teachers who spend hours planning and working with kids, students who do the work each and every day, parents who get their kids to school and support their journey, bus drivers, assistants, cafeteria, nurses, maintenance, IT, and all the departments that make our school communities work each day.” Hardeman County Schools has proven they are providing a quality education that is student-centered and focused on preparing students for their future endeavors.
- There are subgroups of scores below Composite: literacy, numeracy, literacy and numeracy, science, and social studies. Hardeman County Schools received a level 5 in the literacy subgroup.
There were three Level 5 schools designated for 2022-23, Bolivar Central High School, Grand Junction Elementary, and Toone Elementary. Level 5 means significantly exceeded projections.
- This is Toone’s second consecutive year to be a Level 5
- This is Central’s first year to be a Level 5
- Bolivar Elementary also met expectations at Level 3.