For local school districts, the federal waiver of certain No Child Left Behind requirements for Mississippi primarily means new curriculum standards and evaluations for teachers and principals in the near term.

     However, many of the precise details are yet to be determined.

     “We’re still kind of waiting on some guidance,” said Brookhaven Director of Federal Programs Danny Rushing. “We’re still looking at what this means for budgeting and guidelines. We’re holding to see what we’re not required to do anymore, what requirements are new.”

     Lincoln County Superintendent Terry Brister offered similar comments and said, practically speaking, he doesn’t know what the waiver will mean.

     “I don’t really know how it’s going to affect us,” Brister said. “We’re just set in limbo.”

     Brister said the districts haven’t received a clear direction on how to proceed.

     Brookhaven School District Superintendent Lisa Karmacharya referred inquiries about the waiver to Rushing.

     In exchange for receiving the federal waiver from certain No Child Left Behind standards, the state agreed to do several things, including implementing the common core, a set of standards for educational outcomes agreed to by states across the country.

     The Brookhaven School District will fully implement common core from kindergarten through grade 12 this year, Rushing said.

     That’s a little ahead of a state Department of Education timeline, which calls for full implementation by the 2013-14 school year, Rushing said.

     “We’re about a year ahead,” Rushing said. “We want our teachers to be prepared. We’re trying to be proactive about it and not fall behind.”

     The Brookhaven district began implementing common core last year, in kindergarten through second grade.

     The school district has been conducting training this week for teachers in common core standards, and plans for that to continue throughout the year.

     Lincoln County has not completely implemented common core yet. According to Brister, the county district has fully implemented common core in kindergarten through second grade, and partially implemented it in grades three through eight.

     “The standards seem to be much more thorough, much more demanding,” Brister said of common core.

     One aspect of No Child Left Behind schools will likely see fall by the wayside is a measurement of adequate yearly progress, a measurement of how students were progressing toward established goals.

     For the 2010-11 school year, the Brookhaven district did not meet the growth called for by accountability standards put into place under No Child Left Behind.

     Lincoln County also did not meet its growth benchmarks, but was rated as “successful” under state standards whereas Brookhaven was deemed as “academic watch.”

     Rushing said adequate yearly progress will likely by supplanted by a greater emphasis on state models, which measure students against peers.

     “With the waiver, it changes the federal model of accountability,” Rushing said. “It puts us more in line with what the state does.”