Louisiana District Sees ACT Scores Improve with MasteryPrep Boot Camps

Rapides Parish Schools prepped 786 seniors for the October 22, 2022 ACT® by organizing MasteryPrep Boot Camps for the ACT across all 11 high schools. The results: 10 of the 11 schools increased their seniors’ ACT composite average, and 375 seniors improved their scores, furthering their post-secondary opportunities when they walk across the graduation stage next spring.

“This is our second year of implementing MasteryPrep resources on a district-wide unified front. This fall, we not only paid for our seniors to take the test, but also, we scheduled boot camps within two weeks prior to give them a final boost. We were very pleased with the results.”

Matt Byrnes
Director of Secondary Education for Rapides Parish School Board

“Engage, Empower, Elevate” is the motto at Rapides Parish Schools, an Alexandria, Louisiana, public school district with 20,000 students at 32 elementary, 17 middle, and 11 high schools.

This fall, RPSB learned from the Louisiana Department of Education that it achieved an 80.4 School Performance Score (SPS), the highest grade ever achieved for Rapides Parish under the current accountability formula, which includes ACT performance. Alexandria Senior High, Plainview High, and Pineville High earned “A” letter grades.

Following the October 22, 2022 ACT test date, Pineville High seniors jumped from an average of 21.1 to 22, with 62% of its seniors improving their scores. Buckeye High had the highest percentage of senior student growth, with 66% of seniors improving their scores. Glenmora, Bolton, and Alexandria Senior High Schools all had more than one-point ACT composite average increases, and five RPSB schools had more than 50% of its seniors improve their scores.

“The most common feedback I had from all our principals and administrators were that the MasteryPrep Boot Camps had effective, engaging, knowledgeable presenters who communicated with confidence the last-minute strategies, content review, and tips needed for the students to be successful on the real test,” Byrnes says.

School	Increase	Before	After
Glenmora High School	+1.5	16.0	17.5
Bolton High School	+1.4	15.1	16.5
Alexandria High School	+1.0	18.2	19.2
Buckeye High School	+0.9	19.0	19.9
Pineville High School	+0.9	21.1	22.0
Oak Hill High School	+0.5	16.7	17.2
Peabody Magnet High School	+0.5	14.8	15.3
Northwood High School	+0.4	16.2	16.6
Tioga High School	+0.2	19.7	19.9
Rapides High School	+0.1	16.6	16.7
Plainview High School	-0.5	19.6	19.1

MasteryPrep offers Boot Camps in ACT, SAT, WorkKeys, EOC, and TSIA2. In the ACT Boot Camp, districts and schools can purchase a one-day workshop (six-hour in-person or four-hour virtual) led by a MasteryPrep instructor who teaches pacing and time management, test-taking techniques and strategies, and a review of the highly tested content in English, Math, Reading and Science. All students receive a workbook to practice in during and following the Boot Camp.

Byrnes was introduced to MasteryPrep while working as a principal at Bolton. When he went to work at the district level, he pushed for the resources across 11 high schools, and even into some middle schools. RPSB also implements MasteryPrep Practice Testing & Analysis for the ACT® at several of its schools.

“When you have that buy-in, and you’re unified across the district with the same, consistent college readiness resources, then that unified effort, combined with the proper data tracking, metrics, and accountability, will continue to move our district forward,” Byrnes says.

Unpaid testimonial. Individual results may vary, and testimonials are not claimed to represent typical results. ACT score average and gain data courtesy of MasteryPrep client district and based on year over year ACT test data for the same cohort. All testimonials are real participants, and may not reflect the typical user’s experience, and are not intended to represent or guarantee that anyone will achieve the same or similar results.

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