Week 6: Twelve Points Away

Happy Friday!Thank you for another week of good, hard work. Six weeks in, our routines are holding, our classrooms are settled, and the instruction we are seeing is purposeful and paced. A particular thank-you goes to everyone who gave time beyond the school day this week. Our elementary staff has been hosting grade-level parent meetings, and our middle school and high school staff held parent-teacher conferences, which meant late afternoons and evenings on top of a full teaching load. Those conversations are where families stop being an audience and start being partners. Every one of you who stayed made this district stronger this week than it was last week, and we do not take that for granted.That work connects directly to our three performance targets: continued academic growth, daily attendance at or above 93.5 percent, and steady improvement in behavior and school climate. Parent meetings and conferences move all three at once. A family that understands what their child is expected to learn is a family that gets that child to school, backs you up on expectations, and asks better questions at home. There is no target on our list that gets easier without them.The state released the 2026 school and district report cards yesterday, and I want to give them to you straight before anyone hears a version of them somewhere else. This report card is the first hard evidence of what our academic growth target actually produced last year, and it is good news. It is also specific about where our work is not finished, which is exactly what a useful measure should do.What the Report Card SaysMena School District earned a B for the second year in a row, with an index score of 520.31 out of 900. Two years ago that number was 451.02. Last year it was 485.00. This year it is 520.31. That is 69 points of movement in two years, and it puts us above 85 percent of the 251 rated districts in Arkansas. Last year we were above 69 percent. The state median district scored 466.00, so we are sitting 54 points above the middle of the state.Three of our four indicators improved for the third consecutive year. Achievement climbed from 110.69 to 122.51 to 146.16 out of 300 possible points, which is the largest single jump on the report card. Behind that number, the percentage of our students scoring at levels 3 and 4 rose in every subject: English Language Arts from 35.40 to 43.96 percent, mathematics from 42.74 to 49.80 percent, and science from 44.37 to 52.40 percent. Overall Growth rose again to 165.75, with 62.79 percent of our students meeting their individual math growth targets, a rate that ranks above 95 percent of comparable districts. Success-Ready Graduate rose from 130.77 to 142.30 to 155.03 out of 200, carried by a four-year cohort graduation rate that moved from 85.71 percent to 97.54 percent and by 58.91 percent of our graduates finishing with Merit or Distinction.The building-level results are the part I am most proud to share. Mena Middle School moved from a C to a B, from 441.82 to 503.71, a gain of nearly 62 points. Mena High School also moved from a C to a B, from 405.63 to 471.91, a gain of more than 66 points, with 61.48 percent of graduates earning Merit or Distinction. Our elementaries held their B grade to give us Bs across the board. Two schools moved up a full letter grade in the same year. That does not happen by accident, and it does not happen without great teaching and support.It is also worth saying plainly that the gains were not limited to one group of students. Every reported student group in our district improved its index score over last year. Our economically disadvantaged students, who made up 68.1 percent of our enrollment, improved from 459.68 to 500.89 and earned a B of their own, ranking above 87 percent of comparable districts. When a district’s gains show up across the board rather than in one corner, it usually means the instruction changed rather than the roster.There is more data about our school and other schools available in the AR Data Hub. Mena Middle School Is an Arkansas Gem SchoolSecretary of Education Jacob Oliva notified us this week that Mena Middle School has earned a 2026 Arkansas Gem School designation for Growth by Content Area in Mathematics. That designation goes to schools ranking in the top 10 percent statewide within their grade span for growth in a single subject. Out of every middle school in Arkansas, our math growth is in the top tier.The numbers behind it are worth seeing. At Mena Middle School, 74.06 percent of students met their math growth target. Middle school math achievement reached 61.78 percent scoring at levels 3 and 4, against a state middle school median of 44.50 percent. And among the students who start