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Last Tuesday August, 1 saw all Demopolis City Schools employees gather in the high school auditorium for their 2023 in-service assembly. The yearly assembly serves to introduce new faculty members distributed and receive the annual school year report.

Each year, teachers and staff members are given “Demopolis blue” jerseys to wear throughout the school year, and new teachers and staff are presented with jerseys as well. Each jersey has the employee’s last name on the back, with some numbers symbolizing how long a teacher has been with the school system or the year they began in the school system.

This year’s assembly was a big success for Westside Elementary School who won the Demopolis City Schools Foundation award for raising the most money at SchoolFest last spring. 

After the assembly WES made this comet in a Facebook post: “Our fantastic second grade teachers were recognized for having the most growth on the ACAP test of the elementary grades in our district! Westside was also voted “Safest School” in the district! We cannot wait to get the year started!” 

Booklets containing the annual report were given out to those in attendance and gave a detailed look at the past school year. The first topic discussed was academics and the accomplishments achieved during the year. 

For the second year in a row, DCS has been able to build on past success with ACAP (Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program) scores. Math and ELA scores have increased by 14 and 7 points respectively since the 2020-2021 school year. 

College and Career Readiness also saw a significant increase. So much so that the DCS average (95 percent) was higher than both the regional average (66 percent) and the state average (76 percent. The school system was also named as 1 of 7 National Schools of Innovation by the International Center for Leadership in Education. DCS presented at the Model Schools Conference in July on “Improving Student Achievement through Culture and Climate” because of the system’s “tremendous” gains in learning.

The next section focused on special recognition and employees of the year. Recognized teachers and faculty were Shandra Richardson, Sandra Washington, Carl Bolden, Jr, Mary Ellen McCrory, Jennifer Roemen, Anna Foy, Connie Boutwell, and Beth Fleming.