Garrard County board honors staff and students; Lancaster Elementary posts strong KSA gains

The Garrard County Board of Education opened its regular meeting with staff and student recognitions and an update on Lancaster Elementary School’s academic progress.

The board recognized Tammy Goins, cafeteria manager at Garrard County High School, for her work supporting students; Carolyn Ngo of Pankley Elementary was named teacher of the month. Several students — Alexander Biden (third grade), Evelyn Helton (third grade), Liam Burke (eighth grade) and William Jasper (GCHS senior) — were also recognized as students of the month.

Lancaster Elementary principal Miss Middleton told the board the school earned an 86.1 KSA score for 2025 and placed in the top 13% of Kentucky elementary schools. "We were a blue school, 86.1," she said, citing decreases in novice rates: math novice down to about 8% (third–fifth), reading novice down to 18%, and writing novice cut in half to around 12%.

Miss Middleton said the school used an Opportunity Myth framework to guide improvement — focusing on belonging, consistency and coherence — and deployed five teacher leaders to provide classroom feedback and align interventions to grade-level instruction. She described using high-quality instructional resources and curriculum-aligned professional learning to sustain gains. "So we really dove into that work to make sure we were doing that," she told the board.

Board members praised Miss Middleton’s emphasis on systems and staff buy‑in. The recognition segment and the LES update took place before the board moved on to routine reports and the action agenda.