While recent Milestones assessments showed improvements in some subjects and grade levels, Liberty County School System officials are working on bolstering a majority of scores that still lag behind the state and Valarie Lawson, the system director for teaching and learning, said the schools will look at the best instructional practices that will move children toward success.

“We have determined what the students and staff need,” she told school board members. “It’s not another program. It all goes back to accountability. We are going to be in schools. I think I have visited every school so far. We need to use the people that we have. We need to make sure they are trained and they feel confidently trained.”

Lawson said they plan to have teachers visit the classrooms of teachers where students are scoring well on the Milestones, with the hopes of picking up ways to improve their instruction.

“It is incumbent we take teachers on field trips to see what those teachers are doing so we’re all performing at the same pace,” she said. “That is one of the things we are hoping to establish at our walkthroughs. That is one of our plans.”

School board members were presented the results from the spring 2026 Milestones assessments, given to students in third grade and higher. The tests measure how well students have learned the content in English language arts, Math, science and social studies, though the ELA (English language arts) results will not be available until December.

Scores are recorded in four achievement levels — beginning, developing, proficient and distinguished learners. Students who are well prepared for the next grade, college or career path should be performing at the level 3 and 4 categories.

Across the district, scores in math among third graders were up, with 42% reaching proficient and distinguished learner levels, up from 38% in 2025. Third graders across the state hit the 48% mark and across the 1st District RESA, that figure was at 50%.

For fourth graders across the district, the number of students reaching the proficient or distinguished learner level went from 38% to 40% for 2026. The state and RESA scores were at 50%.

Fifth graders are tested in English language arts, math and science, the only elementary school grade to take a science Milestones test. Scores among Liberty County fifth graders reaching proficient and distinguished learner level went up slightly in math to 32% and in science to 37%. Statewide, the scores for both were at 44%.

By individual school, third graders at Button Gwinnett and Frank Long elementary schools had double-digit gains, going from 31% to 42% at Button Gwinnett and 37% to 49% at Frank Long.

Taylors Creek led the pack with 65%, up from 62% in 2025. Waldo Pafford also jumped up to 37% from 28% and three schools — Joseph Martin, Lyman Hall and Liberty — had decreases. Scores in third grade math fell from 42% making the two top levels to 40% at Joseph Martin and from 41% to 39% at Liberty. Lyman Hall’s scores slipped from 25% to 21%.

Among the county’s fourth graders, five of seven elementary showed gains and two — Button Gwinnett and Joseph Martin — had double-digit rises in scores. Taylors Creek led the way with 78% of its fourth-graders making either proficient or distinguished learner status on the state math test. Liberty Elementary, with a six-point gain, was next at 50%. Scores at Joseph Martin jumped from 24% to 40% and rose from 18% to 34% at Button Gwinnett. Frank Long had a drop of 18 points, from 48% to 30%, and Lyman Hall had a nine-point slide, from 26% to 17%.

Science scores among fifth-graders were mixed, with three schools showing gains, three showing decreases and one remaining static. Fifth-graders at Taylors Creek went from 55% being proficient or distinguished to 68%, and fifth-graders at Lyman Hall jumped from 18% to 27%. Liberty’s scores ticked up to 32%. Button Gwinnett remained the same at 33%, while there decreases at Frank Long, Joseph Martin and Waldo Pafford. Frank Long’s results dipped six points to 33%, Joseph Martin fell from 33% to 22% and Waldo Pafford’s scores dipped from 40% to 35%.

Two schools showed gains in fifth-grade math tests, with Lyman Hall bumping one point to 19% from the previous year and Taylors Creek posting a whopping 19-point surge to 68%. Joseph Martin’s fifth-graders remained at 24%, while fifth graders at Button Gwinnett, Frank Long and Waldo Pafford had slight dips. Liberty Elementary’s scores fell from 40% to 30%, while Waldo Pafford dropped three points to 23%, Frank Long’s fifth-graders fell four points to 28% and Button Gwinnett’s mark went from 28% to 22%.

Math scores for Liberty County sixth-graders were up from 24% to 27% but still lagged behind the state mark of 41%. Scores at Midway Middle went up to 26% from 21% and went up at Snelson-Golden Middle from 24% to 28% but dipped from 26% to 25% at Lewis Frasier Middle.

Math scores for seventh graders across the state improved to 42% reaching proficient or distinguished status, and there was a slight improvement in Liberty County’s seventh- graders, going from 26% to 27%. The biggest gain was at Midway Middle, where 33% of seventh graders tested at proficient or distinguished levels, up from 28%. There were slight decreases at Lewis Frasier, from 27% to 26%, and at Snelson-Golden, fall from 24% to 22%.

Eighth graders are tested in English language arts, math and science, and some also opt to take the tests for physical science and algebra. Eighth graders across the state had improvements in math, science, physical science and social studies, with a 10-point to 61% reaching proficient or distinguished learner status in physical science. That number was even higher for eighth graders in the 1st District RESA, which had 80% of test takers reaching the top two levels.

Liberty County eighth graders scored even better than their state and RESA counterparts in physical science, with 90% reaching the proficient and distinguished status, up from 77% in 2025. They also hit the 96% mark in algebra, up from 80% a year ago.

Scores in math, science and social studies all had drops, with math falling to 30% from 32%, science going to 20% from 24% and social studies retreating from 32% to 31%.

Midway Middle’s eighth graders hit 100% on the algebra test for proficient or distinguished learner, up from 91%. Lewis Fraiser eighth graders went from 47% reaching proficient or distinguished status to 85%, and the algebra results went from 88% to 92%. Snelson-Golden’s eighth graders went from 64% to 94% in algebra and from 77% to 95% in physical science.

Snelson Golden had increases in four of five categories and remained the same in the fifth, social studies. Midway Middle had decreases in its other four categories, though one was physical science, where the scores went from 100% in 2025 to 91% in 2026. Lewis Frasier had slight decreases in its three other categories.

The high school tests are compiled from exams given in the winter and again in the spring. For the algebra exam, high schools across the state hit the 48% mark, while Liberty County’s high schoolers were at 29%, up from 17%. Liberty County High’s results from 16% to 31%, and Bradwell Institute’s went from 11% to 18%.

Liberty high schools fell from 34% to 31% in biology, while students in the state improved to 47%. The margin between the state scores and the county scores was closer in history, with 36% of county high schools reaching proficient or distinguished status and 39% of high schoolers reaching the same mark across the state.

Lawson laid out a multitude of steps the system will take to buttress teacher and student support, including continued mentoring for new teachers, content specific plans for core contents, individual student support meetings and informal observations from administration teams.

Those walk-throughs, Lawson said, will happen soon and she expects to visit three schools a day. Feedback from those informal observations will be provided to the principals.

“We will debrief to make sure we saw quality instruction occurring in those classrooms, to make sure we can provide corrective and affirming feedback to those teachers,” she said. “We want to see what we’re doing well but we also recognize there is a sense of urgency. We are not satisfied with where we currently are so we have some things on the horizon.”

The system also is bringing back retired teachers to mentor younger teachers — some teacher mentors, Lawson pointed out, only have a few years of classroom experience under their belts before being asked to guide newer teachers.

“We have a lot of veteran teachers who have been in the field only three years,” she said. “We don’t want to overwhelm them with mentoring teachers.”

School board Chair Verdell Jones said one of the issues Cognia, the organization that provides accreditation for school systems, found with the Liberty system is it did not see a systemic approach across the district. Jones also encouraged continued mentorship of teachers.

“This community is behind us 110%,” she said. “We have professional leaders in our district. I’m glad to hear we are going to support our teachers where needed. I know it can happen.”

Lawson added that the system will try to push literacy efforts both inside the schools and outside of the school system. The idea, she said, is to work with day care centers to see if the system can provide them with professional development in order to start students even as young as 2 years old to begin learning.

Lawson said the system also had its teachers, during summer school, get back to the basics of teaching and said to expect “less Chromebooks, more teaching.”

“Teachers teach from their feet,” she said, “not from their seat.”