School officials are ecstatic after seeing standardized testscores released by the State Department of Education Fridaymorning.

Lincoln County, Brookhaven and the Lawrence County schooldistricts all received good reports Friday.

“I knew in the scale scores we received earlier we went up inevery area, but today is the first day we’ve seen it in thisformat,” said Leanne Summers, Lincoln County Public School Districtassistant superintendent. “We are elated by the results.”

The Mississippi Curriculum Test has been taken by students inthe second through eighth grades for years. What made this year’stest so important is that for the first time it is tied into the NoChild Left Behind Act and individual school accreditation throughthe Mississippi Accountability System.

In the past, accreditation was given at the district level. Nextmonth, however, the state education department will beginannouncing accreditation at the school level, meaning each schoolwill be held accountable for how well its students perform.

Students who take the MCT are grouped into four categoriesdepending on their score – minimal, basic, proficient and advanced- in the three subject areas of math, reading and languagearts.

Schools are scrambling to meet a deadline in which all studentsmust be maintained at the proficient or advanced levels or loseaccreditation.

“I believe that’s why the state is reporting in this format now,to report all schools by their proficiencies in preparation for NoChild Left Behind and the Mississippi Accountability System,”Summers said.

Districts in the Lincoln County area appear well poised to meetthat deadline, according to Lincoln County Superintendent PerryMiller.

West Lincoln Attendance Center topped the state in its seventhgrade reading program, with 93 percent of the students scoring atthe proficient or advanced levels.

“We are elated over the performance of our seventh gradestudents at West Lincoln,” Miller said. “We commend our teachersfor their hard work and focus on the curriculum. It’s a combinedeffort between the seventh grade teachers, the teachers before themand the parents that make this possible.”

West Lincoln also excelled in the second grade math test. It wasjoined by Bogue Chitto Attendance Center as two of only 32 of thestates 448 schools to achieve the lofty goal of 100 percent of thestudents scoring within the proficient and advanced categories.

“All of our schools have shown improvement and we attribute thatto our teachers excelling at every level in teaching theMississippi curriculum,” Summers said.

Miller expressed similar thoughts.

“Our focus the last three years has been on reading, languagearts and math,” Miller added, “and I think our scores certainlyreflect that emphasis.”

In the Brookhaven school district, Superintendent Dr. Sam Boundssaid they were well pleased by the positive results, but admittedthe district needed to improve more.

“We do have a positive trend line,” he said. “We improved inevery category and that is an achievement our teachers, parents andstudents can be proud of, but I’m still not satisfied. We are belowthe state average in too many categories.”

Bounds said the Brookhaven school district is a much strongerdistrict than the scores would indicate.

“We are an above average district, but that is not reflected inthese scores,” he said. “We have tremendous professionals inteaching and administration and with renewed focus we will andshall do better. We had tremendous gains in the lower grades.”

Early childhood instruction and efforts by the district tocoordinate their curriculum with the earlier grades can beattributed with that improvement, Bounds said. With the emphasis onearly childhood education, the scores should improve as thedistrict does and the students advance.

An error in the Friday edition of the Clarion Ledger listedAlexander Junior High with fifth and sixth grade classes, when theschool does not have those classes, Bounds said. He cautionedparents not to be alarmed when they read the figures for thosegrades in making school comparisons.

“That’s a gross error,” he said. “We are actually fairly strongin the proficient and advanced areas at Alexander Junior High.We’re still not satisfied, but we are pleased we’re moving in theright direction.”

Lawrence County also performed well, according to Sharon Dungan,assistant superintendent of that district.

“We’re above the state mean, or average, in 19 of 21 areas,” shesaid. “And the other two aren’t too far behind. We are thrilledwith the improvements we saw in the scores this year over lastyear. The principals, teachers and parents worked hard with thestudents to target the individual needs of the children.”

Topeka Tilton Attendance Center hit the target with thatapproach. Its fifth grade reading class was one of 13 schools tohit the 100 percent mark in students scoring in the proficient oradvanced range.

Miller warned that schools cannot afford to sit on their scores,however, but must continue to strive to get better.

“This is a new year and a new challenge,” he said. “The baseline(minimum scoring) is a moving target. As the state and schoolsimprove, the baseline gets higher and you have to improve to meetor exceed that new target.”