Lavonia Elementary School Comes Off GDoE’s Targeted School Improvement List

A Franklin County Elementary school has made the grade at the State level.

At this week’s regular School Board meeting Assistant Superintendent of Teaching & Learning, Melanie Burton-Brown said Lavonia Elementary School has been removed from the Georgia Department of Education’s Targeted School Improvement List.

Burton-Brown explained that TSI schools are schools in which certain minority students are performing in the lowest 5% on certain CCRPI test subjects.

Lavonia was put on the list in 2019 and since then, she said the school has been working hard to bring student scores up in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades.

“And then COVID hit, and then we did not test one year, and then we tested but it didn’t count,” she explained. “And so we were not able to come off that list.”

As Lavonia Elementary teachers in those grades worked to help students improve, Burton-Brown said the school received federal funds to assist with their efforts.

“The way Lavonia used their funds is they funded an instructional coach in their building, they had some in-school tutoring in partnership with Pioneer RESA using retired teachers. There are additional books in the classroom libraries that were purchased. They had professional learning for all of their teachers. We worked with the integration of all these federal programs together. And December 2022 was the first opportunity that schools could come off the list and glory hallelujah Lavonia came off the list.”

Additionally, Burton-Brown said volunteers and staff at the Boyd Outz Center’s after-school program also helped with tutoring students after school.

“They’ve all worked hard. Teachers have worked hard. I’d like to recognize Mr. Roberts and also Laura Baskins and all the hard work of the teachers and parents at Lavonia for helping and working with our students. And when those scores came out they were no longer in that bottom 5%. So, no more TSI for Lavonia Elementary and that’s a great accomplishment. We’re excited about that,” Burton-Brown said.

Brown said Lavonia Elementary School Principal Brad Roberts believes that had there not been testing delays due to COVID, the school would have been off the list much sooner.