NATCHEZ — The majority of Natchez-Adams School District students in grades three through eight did not meet expectations in the preliminary test data released by the Mississippi Department of Education.

MDE released the 2014-2015 math and English language arts Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) scores for grades three through eight this week. The preliminary scores for Algebra I and English II for high school students were reported in November.

An MDE press release said the state expected a drop from last year’s scores. NASD Superintendent Frederick Hill said all states with tests based on common core standards were experiencing lower scores.

It was the first, and last, time PARCC scores have been used to evaluate students. Hill said the district has not yet evaluated the data in a way that the results can be compared with last year’s scores which were based on a different test.

“To say how we performed in comparison, I don’t know,” Hill said.

PARCC, as well as the new test in use this year, are, for the most part, based on the same College and Career Readiness Standards.

And while State Superintendent of Education Carey Wright said Wednesday students had never taken such a rigorous assessment before,she said this year’s testing is rigorous, too.

“This information needs to be taken seriously,” Wright said.

The results from all of the PARCC tests were rated in five levels of understanding: minimal, partial, adequate, strong and distinguished. Students in the third level (adequate) are approaching expectations, while students scoring at level four (strong) or five (distinguished) meet or exceed expectations.

The state results indicate 23 to 36 percent of Mississippi students scored in level three following national trends. In English, 30 percent of students met or exceeded expectations for English while 26 percent did so in math.

Wright said education leaders realize they have a long way to go, but many children were on the cusp of being there and the scores were a good foundation.

“I’m pleased, as a baseline, that we’re starting where we are,” Wright said.

For the state, 33.1 percent of third-graders met or exceeded math expectations and 28.7 met or exceeded English expectations. But in the Natchez-Adams district, only 20.4 percent met or exceeded in math and 19.7 met or exceeded in English.

For Mississippi fourth-graders, 27.2 percent met or exceeded expectations in math with 29.8 in English. In NASD, 18.2 percent met or exceeded expectations in both math and English.

State fifth-graders had 25.1 percent in math in the top two levels and 28.1 in English. NASD had 14.7 percent of students meet or exceed expectations in math and 14.3 in English.

In sixth grade, 24.5 percent of state students met or exceeded the standards in math and 29.3 followed suite in English. For Natchez-Adams sixth-graders, 10.8 percent were in the top two levels for math and 11.9 percent in English.

Overall, 20.2 percent of state seventh graders were in the top two levels in math with 31.2 in English. In the Natchez-Adams School District, 7.6 percent of students were in the top two levels in math and 17.6 were in the top levels in English.

For state eighth-graders, 28.1 percent of students made it into the top levels for math and 31.1 percent did so for English. In total, 5.8 percent of NASD eighth-graders achieved the top levels in math and 15.9 percent did so in English.

Hill said he would expect scores to go up this year now that students have had more time to get used to the standards.

At the Thursday meeting of the Natchez-Adams School Board of Trustees, Hill said test scores were only one part of a school’s final grade and he couldn’t predict what the schools’ grades would be.

Scores for the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment and juniors who took the ACT last year were also released Thursday. The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment is meant to provide parents, teachers and early childhood providers with a common understanding of what children are able to do when they enter school and improve instruction quality and other services provided.

Kindergarteners are evaluated on skills including matching letters to sounds and recognizing that print flows from left to right to identify school-readiness levels.

For the assessment, 277 students scored an average of 467, placing them as early emergent readers, the lowest level.

Early emergent readers means the students are beginning to understand printing text has meaning, what reading is, how print flows and can identify things like numbers, shapes and letters.

The October 2014 report has an average of 473.

The average score for Mississippi was 502 out of 37,512 students, placing them in the next level up as late emergent readers. This means students can do things such as identify most letters of the alphabet and are building vocabulary, listening skills and their understanding of print.

The 204 Natchez High School juniors who took the ACT in the first statewide test administration scored an average composite score of 15.7. The state average was 17.6 with 29,819 students taking the test.