PREPS-New Albany school named a value added school in Mississippi

MISSISSIPPI STATE, MS— Local schools from the New Albany School District have been recognized at the statewide conference of the Program of Research and Evaluation of Public Schools (PREPS) for being named as a Value Added School. Over 1,000 Mississippi schools’ assessment results were recorded on the Mississippi Statewide Accountability System for 2013-2014. The PREPS value-added analysis resulted in 394 schools statewide designated as value-added schools. Of these schools, 228 are members of PREPS, and these 228 are the 2014* PREPS Value Added Award recipients. The awards were presented during the 2015 PREPS-MAPE Conference, March 18-19, 2015, at the Pearl River Resort in Choctaw, MS. Over 600 educators and business leaders were present at the 2015 PREPS-MAPE Conference.

The following schools were recognized for outstanding performance:

PREPS Value Added analysis began in June 1997. PREPS Value Added analysis allows for comparisons of educational performance among Mississippi schools, taking into account (or holding constant) the impact of differences in the socioeconomic background of the students considered in the research.  The model is used in the PREPS Value Added Awards Program to identify schools which are adding value by performing significantly better than other schools with comparable socioeconomic characteristics. The Value Added analysis produces a band of predicted score performance and recognizes those schools which are performing above the predicted band. Using MCT2 and SATP2 school level scale score averages for 2013-2014 assessments reported by the Mississippi Department of Education under the Mississippi Assessment and Accountability Reporting System (MAARS) and the school socioeconomic indicator (percent of students on free or reduced lunch), PREPS has performed Value Added analysis at the elementary through high school levels.

PREPS is a private non-profit consortium of school districts whose purpose is to develop and implement educational products and services that help manage and support districts’ efforts to demonstrate improvement in their instructional programs. PREPS is supported by the College of Education at Mississippi State University and is housed in the Center for Educational Partnerships, the service division of the college. Collaboration among member districts enables each district to benefit from the development of products and services that no single district is capable of developing alone.

*2014 denotes the year assessment/accountability data analysis is based upon.

Melanie Shannon

Public Relations

New Albany Schools