School board members clash over performance results

Tensions flared at a busy Lincoln Parish School Board meeting Tuesday as board members discussed the recently released school performance score results that peg the parish as the eighth-best district in Louisiana.

The school district remained an “A” rated school for the secondstraight year, as assigned by the Louisiana Department of Education based primarily on test scores — one of only 11 out of 70 districts in the state to earn that grade.

But the parish also fell half a point in its district-wide score compared to 2023, slipping from sixth in the state to eighth as several elementary and middle schools fell by a few points.

Different “tones” to interpreting these results led to a heated exchange among a few board members, ending with District 7 member Hunter Smith abruptly walking out of the meeting.

Performance scores are the state’s primary tool for education accountability. They’re displayed on the online Louisiana School Finder, where potential parents and businesses can search for school information in a community.

Not long after Supervisor of Testing Lillie Williams-Hearn began presenting the local performance scores to the board, Vice President Danielle Williams asked for an explanation for the district’s slip from No. 6 in the state to No. 8.

Williams-Hearn said the central office staff hasn’t had enough time to analyze the causes of all the ups and downs in the data because it was released just before the Thanksgiving break.

“I just want an explanation. Is that too much to ask?” Williams said.

Smith replied it’s not, but Williams’ “tone” was too much, prompting a defense from District 10 member George Mack, Jr.

“Dr. Williams asked a question,” Mack said. “Here’s what I say: Don’t listen to my tone — understand my conviction and my commitment to what I’m trying to accomplish.”

Smith shot back, nearly shouting.

“Do we think these teachers and administrators don’t have the same conviction and the same commitment, that we’re going to sit in here and talk to them like that?” he said. “I’m not going to stand for that, this board’s not going to stand for that, and that’s not who we are. That’s not who we are.”

With that, Smith left the meeting.

“For him to get up and leave, in my opinion, is disrespectful to this board,” Mack continued. “I don’t care what he says. He can’t speak for us.”

Speaking with the Leader Wednesday, Smith said his intention was to stand behind educators across the parish, and he believed the nature of Tuesday’s questioning wasn’t doing that.

“I’m really passionate about the people who get up every day, put their boots on, and go to work, pouring into my children and the 5,500 other children of this district,” he said. “ I believe the underlying tones and the grandstanding — the way some board members speak to our employees is inappropriate and unprofessional.”

Smith also apologized for his outburst.

“I apologize for how I handled myself,” he said. “I am not sorry for what I said and who I took up for. I am simply sorry for how I said it.”

Meanwhile, Williams said Wednesday her comments were not aimed at teachers or administrators, but to bring to the public what she experiences behind the scenes: that in her opinion, Superintendent Ricky Durrett and his central staff do not have a cohesive plan to address the achievement gaps that remain in students’ learning data.

“My colleagues on the board, they say ‘we want to be No. 1,’” she said. “So I legitimately asked a question: Why are we trending backward? What is the plan? We have no plan.”

During the presentation, Durrett referred to a meeting earlier this year when his staff detailed a new early-grades reading partnership with Louisiana Tech University that is introducing a new curriculum from the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI), as well as other changes aimed at shoring up reading ability at the youngest levels.

“That’s not even a plan,” Williams said Wednesday. “That doesn’t help address the issue.”

The performance-score data holds a variety of positives and negatives.

Lincoln Parish went down from last year while the state as a whole went up, but the parish remains well above the state average, with a 92.9 overall score to the state’s 80.2. The only school system anywhere near Lincoln geographically that compares to its rating is DeSoto Parish.

Ruston High School, Choudrant High School and Dubach School saw improvements, with Dubach continuing its meteoric rise from being the district’s only “D” school in 2019 to strengthening its B rating once again.

But every other school in the district fell, including three of Ruston’s four elementary schools slipping from B to C status.

A.E. Phillips Laboratory School joins Ruston and Choudrant high schools as the A-rated campuses of the parish, leading the pack with a 117.8 rating.

Tuesday’s encounter made clear officials view these results through various lenses.

“I am extremely proud of our district to maintain an A rating,” Smith said Wednesday. “Every day of school is a battle: a battle to get kids to school, to get parental buy-in, to get kids to stay focused, to get teachers to stay and be teachers because of the non-stop criticism they and their administrators get.”

“We don’t need to put our head in the sand, but we need to support them.”

Durrett said recent rounds of LEAP testing have been inconsistent as the state has implemented new social studies and science standards and tests over the past few years.

“This year will be the first time in three years we’ll be testing kids on all four subjects,” he said after the meeting.

He said as recent curriculum transitions smooth out, and classrooms get used to the new UFLI reading instruction, he expects the inconsistent results will level out and improve in the coming years.

“The state gives you these measures that are important to measure how your kids are doing,” Durrett said. “If we’re an A as a district, that tells us from the state level that we’re doing a good job with most of our kids.”

Officials also discussed the subgroup data, meaning how school performance scores shake out among different demographic student groups.

Large achievement gaps continue to exist both locally and statewide between these groups.

Lincoln Parish is one letter grade higher than the state average in each tracked subgroup — an A among white students, B’s for Black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students, and a C for students with disabilities.

Officials cast these results in various lights.

“Subgroups, while they’re not great, when you compare where we are to the rest of the state, we’re well above that,” Durrett said.

“Our students with disabilities, our African American students are not where they need to be,” Williams said Wednesday. “You have to close the achievement gap.”

The next glimpse the board and public will get into the academic progress of parish students will be the results of midyear literacy screeners that students in grades K-3 began taking this week.