About 80 percent of schools in Virginia are fully accredited for the 2015-2016 school year.
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Virginia’s public schools have shown improvement in the past year, but the new accreditation rating from the Virginia Department of Education shows that a few schools in Albemarle County are lagging behind. In 2014, 30 percent of schools missed the mark.
The three schools that were denied accreditation in Newport News were Mary Passage Middle School, Newsome Park Elementary School and Sedgefield Elementary School. Six years ago, just 15 schools got that distinction.
Denied accreditation – A reconstituted school becomes denied if it fails to meet full accreditation standards within an agreed upon period, or fails to have its “partially accredited, reconstituted school” application renewed.
Since SOL test scores were released in August, Gill said division staff has been “crunching the numbers” and weren’t surprised to hear all schools received full accreditation. The new exams were supposed to better gauge a student’s critical-thinking skills.
For a school to earn full accreditation, students must achieve adjusted pass rates of at least 75 percent on English reading and writing SOL tests, and of at least 70 percent on assessments in mathematics, science and history. High schools must also meet a graduation index.
The numbers are in and not every school in our area passed the test.
Ten RPS elementary schools are fully accredited: Broad Rock, Greene, Fairfield, Carver, Fisher, Stuart, Holton, Munford, Southampton and Fox.
This year, 76 schools were labeled “improving schools” and 46 were labeled “approaching benchmark”.
“Strategies like allowing expedited Standards of Learning retakes are helping more students and schools reach for success by measuring student achievement without pinning their futures on just one high stakes test”, McAuliffe said in a statement.
Waterman Elementary School saw a 14 percent jump in its English scores, although it did have a 5 percent drop in history. “It is also a great reminder that our students are already being well served by the dedicated educators in Prince William County Public Schools”.
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Prince William and Loudoun counties both cut in half the number of schools that fell short of benchmarks between last year and this year.
