The District School Board of Madison County, Florida, will hold a public hearing on Monday, March 19, 2018 at 6:00 p.m.  The meeting will be held in the School Board Meeting Room of the Superintendent’s office, 210 N.E. Duval Avenue, Madison, FL for the following purpose:

Changes to Policy 6550-Travel & Per Diem

The proposed document may be viewed at the School Board Office, 210 NE Duval Avenue, Madison, Florida.  Statutory Authority:  120.54, 1001.43 F.S.

Beginning January 23, teachers, parents, and students across the district will have an opportunity to participate in the 5Essentials Survey. This survey is designed to generate a detailed picture of the inner workings of your child’s school. As a parent, this opportunity will allow you to share your thoughts on the important elements of school effectiveness in a survey about your child’s school.

The 5Essentials Survey will be administered online by UChicago Impact at the University of Chicago. The survey gathers data related to five indicators that can predict important student outcomes, including improved attendance and larger test score gains. These five indicators that affect and predict school success are:

• Effective Leaders
• Collaborative Teachers
• Involved Families
• Supportive Environments
• Ambitious Instruction

Prior research has shown that schools that were strong on at least three of these “5Essential” indicators were 10 times more likely to improve student learning gains in math and reading than those that were weak on three or more Essentials. 

Your participation in the parent portion of the survey will help us understand the conditions at your child’s school and guide improvement. Your identity and survey responses will be kept completely confidential and will never be connected to you or your child.

The 5Essentials Survey will be conducted January 23 – February 23, 2018. To take the survey please visit https://survey.5-essentials.org/florida/survey/parent/. 

Per information received from Emergency Management regarding our anticipated weather, our morning temperatures are expected to be extremely low WITHOUT ice.

Schools WILL be open, but please remind students to dress warmly.

Madison County Central School (MCCS) Press Release – January 12, 2018

Key Points to Remember:

• Based on the recommendation of the Community Assessment Team (CAT) the district has chosen the turn-around option of working with an External Operator to improve the instructional focus at MCCS.
  
  
• MGT Consulting Group is the External Operator working with MCCS.  This educational consulting firm is NOT a Charter School or Charter School Corporation.  The district did not choose the Charter School option for turn-around.
  
  
• MGT personnel will work with the school and district staff in the following areas to improve the student achievement: Leadership Development, Instructional Staffing, Curriculum and Instruction, Assessments, and Professional Development.

MCCS has been labeled as a “persistently low-performing school” in excess of ten years. Due to new legislation, Madison had to select one of several state mandated turn-around options:

• Reassign students to another school and monitor the progress of each reassigned student;
• Close the school and reopen the school as one or more charter schools, each with a governing board that has a demonstrated record of effectiveness; or
• Contract with an outside entity that has a demonstrated record of effectiveness to operate the school. An outside entity may include a district-managed charter school in which all instructional personnel are not employees of the school district, but are employees of an independent governing board composed of members who did not participate in the review or approval of the charter

Statute also required the formation of a Community Assessment Team (CAT) in order to review all school and district data to select the best option for MCCS. The CAT is comprised of community leaders, business leaders, parents and school personnel. Pastor George Williams is acting as chair for the CAT, Pastor Jason Justus is the Co-chair. Other members of the team include: Amy Barfield, Andy Barnes, Tommie Bodenstein, Gladney Cherry, Rene Demps, Emily Dickey, Beth Ebberson, Diane Head, Gwen Hubbard, Annette Johnson, T.J. Jones, Brian Kauffman, Alston Kelley, Ruth Ann Latner, Merv Mattair, Sherilyn Pickels, Mimi Replogle, Gina Rutherford, and Darren Webb.  The CAT continues to meet at least monthly and focus on improving three key areas:  School/Parent Communications, Community Communication and Public Relations, and Teacher/Staff/Parent/Student/Community Involvement and Morale Building.  The CAT has been working diligently to support our schools as they work to improve the education for all students in Madison County.

After reviewing all of the data, the members of the CAT decided that the charter school option would NOT benefit the students, teachers, staff, and community.  The CAT made the recommendation for the district to enter a partnership with MGT Consulting Group to work with MCCS in order to improve the school grade and student achievement.  This partnership will take place over a two-year period.  MGT Consulting Group will work as partners with MCCS and district staff in order to improve the school grade to a “C” or higher.

In November, MGT Consulting Group provided a contractor to conduct an 8-Step Model to School Improvement Training with district staff, MCCS teachers and administrators.  This training included information on steps to increase student achievement on the state assessment and to close the student achievement gap between student groups and to use data and targeted instruction to provide excellence and equity within the school system.  On December 6, 2017 the information was given to all of the MCCS staff detailing the plans for improving instruction moving forward.  On December 20, 2017 and January 5, 2018, teachers met together to develop Focus Calendars that detailed instruction and monitoring of the education standards being taught.  On the January 25, 2018 Early Release Day, the teachers and staff will continue to develop these standards based Focus Calendars.  On January 16-17, 2018, the MGT Project Manager will be back at MCCS to meet with tested Grade Level groups during their planning time to review student data and plan instruction based on this data.  All MCCS administrators, teachers and staff, district office staff, as well as, community volunteers continue to work diligently to implement improvements at MCCS.