This school year marked a new beginning for the Columbus Municipal and Lowndes County school districts.
Instead of the traditional school calendar, both city and county districts have adopted a modified school year. Under the new plan, classes start earlier and end later, but school days are broken up by several breaks throughout the year.
Roughly halfway through each traditional semester, the districts hold an intersession, a week designed to allow for both remediation and enrichment activities for students who choose to attend.
Both the city and county districts recently completed their first intersessions. The intersessions are voluntary, both for teachers and students, and participation varied across both districts.
About 881 students participated in the Columbus intersession, according to Assistant Superintendent Shernise Wilson.
“Everyone qualifies, but it’s 100% voluntary,” Wilson said. “We have sessions for students who may need academic help, athletic sessions, enrichment, field trips, scholarship writing sessions, and more.”
The district tried to reach both students who needed academic help and those who didn’t.
“We invited students who, based on our benchmarks, needed more individualized help,” Wilson said. “For students who didn’t necessarily need that help, we offered enrichment sessions geared towards their interests.”
The district asked students what kind of programs they would like to see, Wilson said, and tried to gear course offerings to those requests. It ended up with programming that ranged from traditional offerings like ACT and WorkKeys preparation on the one hand to CPR training, cooking and mock trials on the other.
About 131 teachers participated in the intersession, Wilson said.
Over in the Lowndes County district, about 520 students participated in the first intersession, according to Superintendent Sam Allison.
“Each school designed the intersession to best fit their students’ needs,” Allison said. “From guest speakers to fun, engaging academic activities in small groups, students had opportunities to grow.”
Like the CMSD, the county offered WorkKeys and ACT courses for upper-level students, Allison said.
Allison said about 75 teachers participated in the first intersession.
Both districts are weighing the impact of the intersession, but in different ways.
“Of the students that attended the intersession, 85% said they were looking forward to the spring,” Wilson said. “About 86% of parents said they would sign their students up for the spring intersession. … It’s encouraging to see.”
Allison said LCSD surveyed teachers, parents and staff after the two-week break. The district is weighing the results of those surveys.
“We understand this will always be a work in progress,” Allison said. “As we plan for the spring intersession, we will use the information we gathered to make changes to help improve the program. The ultimate gauge of success will be our students’ growth.”
Starkville-Oktibbeha: intersessions help with graduation, retention
The Starkville-Oktibbeha County School District adopted their modified calendar, with intersessions, last school year.
According to Director of Communications Haley Montgomery, the district’s intersession attendance has grown steadily, starting out at 699 in fall of 2022 and hitting 985 in fall of 2023.
The district splits its intersessions into two pieces: acceleration and enrichment, Montgomery said. Enrichment is open to anyone who wants to participate and is designed to offer “fun and hands-on experiences.”
Acceleration, on the other hand, is by invitation only and is geared for students who need to relearn skills or recover credits. Participants are chosen by teachers and administrators based on need.
“We look at test scores and graduation rates over time to show us some of how we’re doing with providing more real-time help for students who are struggling,” Montgomery said. “We are seeing improvements in areas like student attendance and teacher retention that indicate intersession may be a factor on moving the needle on some of those concerns.”
Community members are also pleased with the intersessions, Montgomery said.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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