WINONA – The Program of Research and Evaluation for Public Schools (PREPS, Inc.), Mississippi’s only statewide educational consortium, announced that Winona High School was a 2018 Value-Added Award recipients. The school will be one of those honored at an awards luncheon and ceremony to be held Monday, February 26 at the Jackson Hilton during the 2018 Mississippi Education Partnership Conference hosted by PREPS and MAPE which celebrates achievements and collaborations in schools.
According to Winona High School Principal Charlie Parkerson, Winona was one of only 10 high schools in the state to receive the PREPS Award, and “that is a big honor.”
Parkerson said the award was the result improvement Winona’s student made on the state’s four subject area tests – English II, biology, Algebra I, and U.S. History.
“In English II, we were the seventh best high school in the state of Mississippi,” Parkerson said. “We had improvement on all four tests. We had an above 80 percent proficiency rate in everything, but our biggest gains were in English II.
The PREPS Value-Added analysis began in June 1997 and allows for valid comparisons of educational performance on the prior year’s state testing while taking into account the impact of differences in the socioeconomic background of the students considered in the research. The model is used in the PREPS Value Added-Awards Program to identify high performing schools among Mississippi public school districts who are members of the PREPS Consortium. Schools which are deemed as adding value are those performing significantly better than other schools with comparable socioeconomic circumstances. PREPS follows the mission of actively providing research and evaluation for public schools.
