News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Jackson County Board of Education received positive results after reviewing the school system’s 2024 TISA accountability report.
Director of Schools Jason Hardy said the school system made strides in all three goals set to reach by 2030 which include improving third-grade reading proficiency by 70 percent, improving Math proficiency by 75 percent, and improving the percentage of ready graduates by 95 percent. Hardy said it was great to see the school system make progress in those areas.
“We look at it from every angle of course, with TISA we are talking about a lot of funding,” Hardy said. “and with that funding source, we have to use our money wisely but we also look for grants and other things to kind of bring in there but all that money wise and grant wise that’s just to do one thing and that’s to get our students to succeed.”
Hardy said year two will be more challenging as the school system will have to build on the improvements from year one. Hardy said the goal is to recover the learning loss students experienced from the pandemic within the next five years.
“We know how important it is to put in place the tools for our students to succeed,” Hardy said. “This report kind of just shows kind of where we are putting our money and we have been pretty happy with the results last year and we are looking forward to a good year this year as well.”
Hardy said improving third-grade reading has put a lot of pressure on teachers, students, and parents. Hardy said the TISA goal has pushed them to keep a close eye on the third-grade level.
“I do think it’s made us pay a little bit more attention to get a little more detail on how we are doing things at the third-grade level,” Hardy said. “Hopefully that’s one of the reasons we’ve had a good third-grade year is because we had to look in there and we knew the pressure was even higher than most years.”
Hardy said he wants to continue to see progress and that the ultimate goal is to prepare every Jackson County student to be ready when they graduate.
