State Superintendent John White and News Schools Baton Rouge CEO Chris Meyer visiting with GEO Prep’s leadership.

 

July 10, 2018

Dear Friends:

The Louisiana Department of Education released state test results for the 2017-18 school year this morning and the results show GEO Prep of Greater Baton Rouge to be the top performing charter school in Baton Rouge. The state is leading the nation in school accountability and is demanding a higher bar for measuring school effectiveness choosing to require students to show mastery of content rather than a basic level of knowledge. With this higher bar, GEO Prep scored the best among charters and our students outperformed their peers across the state, too.

The state revealed 34% of the state’s students in grades 3-8 scored Mastery+ in English, Math and Social Studies. The state also reported 21% of the state’s Black students and 26% of the state’s economically disadvantaged students scored Mastery+. At GEO Prep, which is 100% Black and 100% economically disadvantaged, 28% of all our students scored Mastery+. The state reported an improvement in each of these categories at the statewide level of 1 point. GEO Prep improved by 3 points from the previous year. GEO Prep students outperformed their peers and out gained their peers, too.

GEO Prep also performed comparable to East Baton Rouge Parish schools as 30% of the students in EBR schools scored Mastery+ levels compared to GEO Prep’s 28%. Both EBR and GEO Prep showed a 3 point improvement in Mastery+ scores from the previous year.

It is important to note that GEO Prep is an open enrollment school. We do not select our students. Students do not test to get into our school. We also have 95% or better retention rate from beginning to end of school year. We retain our students!

GEO Prep is in high demand and is growing from 300 to more than 500 students this year. This will be a huge challenge for our staff and leadership but we are confident we are up to the challenge.

Congrats to the GEO Prep team–staff and board–and many thanks to all for their support.

Let’s keep changing the world together!

Sincerely,

Kevin Teasley

President

GEO Foundation

317-694-9985

Twitter: @teasleygeo