The Department of Education released performance scores earlier this week, and the Zachary Community School District fell from its longheld position as #1. But what does it mean, really?

Before we get into the nitty gritty of Zachary-specific details, we’d like to take a minute to highlight some big achievements that Louisiana schools have made in nationwide rankings this year.

• Fourth graders No. 1 in the nation for reading growth

• Economically disadvantaged fourth graders improved from 42nd to 11th for reading proficiency

• Louisiana K-12 education improved five places from 46th to 40th, the state’s highest ranking ever in the U.S. News & World Report

• Louisiana is one of just three states where average reading achievement levels surpassed pre-pandemic levels

ZCSD

We met with Superintendent Ben Necaise this morning to go over the data and school rankings, and we’ll break it all down here. We’re going to be throwing a lot of numbers at you, but the biggest thing you need to understand is that the way Louisiana schools are ranked is changing next year. Thankfully, Zachary is well positioned to capitalize on those changes and has a plan for success. 

The school performance score currently takes into account a number of measures. Two of the most important are: Performance and Growth. The performance indicator measures if students are achieving mastery or above on their testing; the growth metric indicates whether students are progressing through LEAP achievement levels year over year. The LEAP achievement levels are: Advanced, Mastery, Basic, Approaching Basic, and Unsatisfactory.

Growth

“When you break this data down, and it’s a lot of it, what we showed is we are ranked #2 in K-8 growth index, which calculates growth for ELA and Math” explains Superintendent Necaise, meaning Zachary performed very well in terms of helping individual students move up the ladder in the LEAP achievement levels of core subject matter. “We are still very high performing with growth—taking a kid who may be approaching basic and moving them past that,” Necaise explains. “We are growing kids,” Necaise says. “The difference is we may not reach mastery at this time, but they are on their way. Which is the other half of the formula.”

Performance

The performance indicator, called the Assessment Index, measures if students are achieving mastery or above on the EOC tests. This year, 44% of Zachary students achieved mastery or higher on their LEAP test, which places them #5 in the state.  

Currently performance (assessment) and growth add up to just 25% of the score for high school, with each metric making up 12.5% of the overall measurement. Next year, says Necaise, that pie will get a lot simpler.

Under the Department of Education’s revised accountability system starting next year (but first reporting in 2026), performance will account for 33% of the ranking for high school, growth will make up 42%, and the remaining 25% will measure the number of high school students graduating on time, and showing college or workforce readiness on a national exam.

For K-8th, the standards under the revision will allot 46th percent to achievement (performance), and 54% to growth in Math and English.

While the revision that emphasizes growth is great news overall for Zachary, it also comes with its own challenges. Starting next year, 75% of our high school rankings will come from the LEAP25 EOC test for 7 subjects:  Alg. I, Alg. II, Geometry, English I, English II, US History, and Biology.

ZCSD is currently working on a 5-year strategic plan to address this and a variety of other areas holistically throughout the district.  focusing on improving both growth and performance across all district schools. As part of this, the state has instituted a new robust teacher evaluation and support program called LEADS designed to look at individual students and how to move them along the path to Mastery. “All of our teachers are highly trained professionals,” says Necaise, “but you can always hone your craft and get better. This program gives teachers an evaluation rubric to measure against three times a year for new teachers, and one or two times a year for experienced teachers and support plans for each teacher, literally to the granular level of individual student performance.”

Demographics and Trends

While there is a longstanding concern about Zachary schools being overloaded with newcomers due to the influx of new construction*, the truth is that we consistently remain within a range of about 100-150 students year to year, says Necaise, and that’s projected to be the case through 2030. What is changing, however, is the demographics of those students.

“We’re seeing less kids matriculate 13 years in the Zachary system,” Necaise explains. “More kids are parachuting in at different grade levels.” Some of these students enter into upper grade levels several years behind grade level. Necaise also says that the ESL (English as a Second Language) population is trending. While there used to be a dozen or so ESL students throughout the district, there are now approximately 150, many of whom are at the elementary level.

If they are English language learners, they get a year grace period before their test scores count towards Zachary’s accountability. However, if they are coming from other, often poorer performing, districts in Louisiana or from out of state, they are immediately counted in Zachary’s accountability metrics.

“If a student starts in the ZCSD in August, they’ll be tested by April. That’s not a lot of time to get a student to Mastery,” explains Necaise. However, with the accountability system changing to focus more on growth, Zachary is well positioned to perform well under the new metrics. “ For example, we do a very good job of taking a student who was projected to gain 10 points to instead gain 15,” says Necaise, “Zachary will never be satisfied with just an A rating. We are working on our 5 year plan right now to make sure we have the best scores.”

Closing Thoughts

“I’ve seen systems that hurry and react,” Necaise says. “Like, let’s take focus off the arts, or put more funding in academics, or cut recess,” he says. But in the ZCSD, the focus is on the “whole child” philosophy and the 3 A’s: arts, academics, and athletics. “It’s super important to make sure you’re giving that child the full experience of school. Those other things, arts and athletics, help the child do the academics,” he explains. 

The District will always strive for continuous improvement, Necaise says. “Rankings are important, and we always want to strive to be #1, but our goal is to look at where we’re at and keep pushing forward. How do we get better, how do we keep moving forward?”

*Necaise says that according to the District's demographer, the highest percent change in Zachary’s demographics has come from those within the 60 to 70 age range.