For the second year in a row, Grenada School District earned an A rating for its performance in the 2022-23 school year, according to the Mississippi State Board of Education, which approved official grades for Mississippi schools and districts on Thursday, September 28. 

Grenada’s Superintendent Dr. David Daigneault credited the district’s success to developing a sound strategy for excellence and enlisting the help of everyone — from bus drivers and cafeteria workers to students and parents to teachers and administration — to help achieve the goal.

“We’re all in this together, and everyone has their role to play,” Daigneault said. “From bus drivers and cafeteria workers, offering words of encouragement to students. To teachers who spend their lives devoted to helping kids learn and understand our complicated world. To the administrators trying to manage it all and give teachers the assistance they require to address their students’ needs.”

Mississippi’s schools and districts are graded on an A-F scale. The grades are part of the state’s accountability system, which helps teachers, school leaders, parents and communities know how well local schools and districts are serving students. 

Grenada School District’s overall score in 2023 increased 47 points for a total of 716 to earn the A rating. “And for the first time in our history, Grenada High School earned an A,” Daigneault announced. “That’s an incredible achievement, and I’m so proud of the staff, the administration, and the academic performance of our students.”

To commemorate the achievement, students from Grenada High School posed for a photograph in the shape of an A on the football field.

Grenada School District’s scoring in 2023 places it among the top 20% of all districts in the state on the 2023 Mississippi Statewide Accountability System. Grenada Elementary School’s scores ranked in the top 6% of all elementary and middle schools scored on the state's 700 point scale.

Daigneault noted the upward trend in scores for each of Grenada’s schools, has continued for multiple years. He attributed the increase to a district-wide learning strategy in which teachers and administrators assess student performance and cater lessons to individual classes and students.   

“This is vastly different from how education used to operate,” Daigneault said. “Every child is different. Some children grasp a lesson immediately. For others, it takes a little more time and effort. Our administrators and specialists study the data and help teachers develop a plan to ensure that each student is successful.”

Daigneault extended credit and thanks to the district’s school board. “We are so blessed in Grenada to have a school board that is absolutely committed to the excellence of our school district,” he said. “Our school board, led by board president Marjorie Hughes, truly believes in our vision of ‘education, training, dreams,’ and they want to do everything they can to achieve success for every student in our district.”

Mississippi’s school grading system considers many indicators, including how well students perform on Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) tests for ELA and Mathematics in grades 3-8 and high school, whether students are showing improvement on those tests from year to year, and whether students are graduating within four years. The system also factors in performance on the ACT and advanced high school courses and how well schools are helping English learners and the lowest-achieving students make progress toward proficiency.