A Brookhaven High School student earned the maximum score in English on a state-wide assessment.

Junior Reagan Whittington earned a score of 850, the maximum possible score on the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test.

The 2014-2015 school year was the only year that Mississippi participated in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, a group that provides assessments for English II and Algebra I.

“That doesn’t happen often,” Whittington’s English teacher Brenda Sasser said. “She’s the most gifted child I’ve ever run into.”

Brookhaven High School principal David Martin said a score of 850 doesn’t necessarily mean that every question was answered correctly, but it is the highest score on the assessment.

“It was a very intensive test,” Martin said about the PARCC assessment. “It was actually two different portions. The students right after spring break took what’s called the PBA, Performance Based Assessment, and then turned around in May and had to take the EOY, End of Year assessment. It was a real rigorous test. It was pretty tough.”

The Mississippi Dept. of Education did not release scores of all students to the public. Instead, it released rankings from 1-5, with 5 exceeding expectations. MDE released a report on those results on Dec. 17., revealing that in grades 3-8, 30 percent met or exceeded expectations in English and 26 percent met or exceeded expectations in mathematics.

MDE left PARCC this year and has contracted with Questar Assessment Inc. to provide state-wide testing for English II and Algebra I, along with grades 3-8 English and math assessments.