By Kyle Roberts
RUSTON, La. — The Lincoln Parish School Board met Tuesday night for its November 2024 meeting and honored the students, teachers and principals of the year before discussing the district’s A-rating School Performance Score, where intense discussion surrounded the question of the district’s half-point drop from last year.
LPSB Communications Coordinator Brandon Sutherland began the meeting by honoring the 2024 district students, teachers and principals of the year. The award winners are as follows:
Students of the Year
Elementary- Collins Reigelman, A.E. Phillips
Middle School- Avery Dixon, Ruston Junior High
High School- Abby Seney, Ruston High
Teachers of the Year
Early Elementary- Jennifer Breeding, LPEC
Elementary- Diamond Mitchell, Dubach School
Middle School- Sarah Waits, Ruston Junior High
High School- Stephanie Young, Choudrant High
Principals of the Year
Elementary- Mandy Brown, Ruston Elementary
High School- Chris Jones, Choudrant High
Following the presentations, Winn Community Health CEO Deano Thornton joined LPSB Director of Student Services Justin Barron to propose a three-year partnership to create school-based clinics within Glen View, Ruston Elementary, Hillcrest, Cypress Springs, I.A. Lewis, and Ruston Junior High (The LPJ will have a full story on the school-based clinic vote in Thursday’s journal.).
Dr. Lillie Williams-Hearn then gave a presentation of the school performance data received on Wednesday, Nov. 20, where Lincoln Parish School District’s “A” score of 92.9 — a half-point lower than 2023 — ranks tenth overall out of 70 school districts across the state. In K-8 Schools, A.E. Phillips ranks sixth overall with its 117.8 A score.
Early into Williams-Hearn’s presentation, Dr. Danielle Williams (District 1) asked repeatedly for information on why LPSB dropped a half-point and appeared to be trending downward. Hunter Smith (District 7) then expressed frustration with how he perceived Williams’ tone in questioning Williams-Hearn and the school board at large in her requests for more information during the presentation.
Williams-Hearn responded by saying that the purpose of the presentation was to strictly review the data that was made available only recently and that more time would be needed to dig into the data for a clearer understanding.
LPSB Chief Academic Officer Dana Talley then followed up by talking about the trend that looks at the rise of the district’s ranking over the course of the last five years, given the ranking of 10 back in 2019.
“When you’re talking about trends, you don’t look at one year,” Talley said. “Some districts moved up and improved pretty significantly, but if you look at the trend from 2019, which is data over time, we’ve gone from 10 to eight.”
George Mack, Jr., (District 11) then spoke directly to Smith about his earlier comments.
“Here’s what I say, specifically: don’t listen to my tone — understand my conviction and my commitment to what I’m trying to accomplish,” Mack said as a defense of Williams.
“Do we think these teachers and administrators don’t have the same convictions and commitment?” Smith asked in reply. “Are we going to sit in here and talk to them like that? I’m not going to stand for that, and this board is not going to stand for that.”
Smith then exited the meeting, while Mack continued his defense of Williams.
Following the school board session, LPSB Superintendent Ricky Durrett talked about the interventions that were put in place back in September and other plans that are school-specific.
“We’ve embraced (University of Florida Literacy Institute curriculum) and we’re doing it district-wide now,” Durrett said. “Choudrant dropped some and didn’t have as good of math scores, so we’ve switched them to ZEARN math. It’s not a one-size fits all for each school.”
Still, for Durrett, it’s important to still see some of the positives in the data — including Dubach School’s continued rise in scoring (76.2).
“We’re an A as a district,” Durrett concluded. “I think that tells us from the state level, we’re doing a good job with most of our kids.”
Ruston High, Dubach School, Ruston Elementary, Choudrant High, A.E. Phillips and Hillcrest Elementary all earned 2024 Top Gains Honorees for their progress index.
Ruston High, Choudrant High and A.E. Phillips all earned 2024 Opportunity Honorees for outperforming the 90th percentile with economically disadvantaged students. Ruston High also earned the opportunity honoree designation for outperforming the 90th percentile for students with disabilities.
While no Lincoln Parish School was graded lower than a C, Durrett acknowledged in a previous interview that the school board will continue to assess for ways to improve scores for all schools.
“We’ve actively looked at the reason why we’ve dipped slightly in areas and will continue to implement tiered interventions to make sure students are given every opportunity to master objectives (some examples include Lexia, high dosage tutoring with teachers and On Your Mark, math high dosage tutoring with Imagine learning and Zearn),” Durrett said earlier. “District and school-based instructional teams will continue to monitor and adjust support to address student weaknesses.”
Below are the scores for all schools graded in the parish along with their point changes from 2023 to 2024.
| 2024 SPS | Change | 2023 SPS | |
| Lincoln Parish | 92.9 (A) | -0.5 | 93.4 |
| Ruston High | 107.5 (A) | +2.8 | 104.7 |
| Dubach School | 78.7 (B) | +2.5 | 76.2 |
| Choudrant High | 107.5 (A) | +0.1 | 107.4 |
| Ruston Elementary | 74.8 (C) | -0.9 | 75.7 |
| Choudrant Elementary | 88.1 (B) | -1.0 | 89.1 |
| Simsboro High School | 87.7 (B) | -1.6 | 89.3 |
| Ruston Junior High | 71.4 (C) | -1.9 | 73.3 |
| A.E. Phillips | 117.8 (A) | -2.1 | 119.9 |
| Hillcrest Elementary | 75.9 (B) | -3.6 | 79.5 |
| I.A. Lewis | 60.3 (C) | -4.2 | 64.5 |
| Glen View Elementary | 71.2 (C) | -5.6 | 76.8 |
| Cypress Springs Elementary | 69.7 (C) | -6.2 | 75.9 |
Cedar Creek and Lincoln Preparatory School were not included in this data and are graded separately by their own criteria.
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