A recent release of accreditation ratings by the Virginia Department of Education for Prince Edward County Public Schools show that Prince Edward County Elementary School will be fully accredited for the first time since the 2012-2013 school year. According to Dr. Barbara Johnson, division superintendent, today’s announcement is “the result of the hard work of teachers and administrators at the elementary school in the areas of curriculum alignment and data analysis.” Dr. Johnson added, “We are excited that the new accreditation standards adopted by the Virginia Board of Education recognizes those students who did not meet the state benchmark but demonstrated significant growth toward grade-level proficiency.”

As for Prince Edward County Middle School and Prince Edward County High School, both schools will be Accredited with Conditions for the upcoming school year. The middle school failed to meet the standard for accreditation by one indicator – Achievement Gap in English. The high school did not meet the standard for accreditation in three areas: Academic Achievement and Achievement Gap in math and Chronic Absenteeism.

“While we are excited about the gains made in some areas, especially at the elementary school, the overall scores for the division reflect that there is still work to be done,” added Dr. Johnson. “I am convinced that we have the processes and personnel in place to ensure that our students will continue to demonstrate growth and that our overall pass rates in all three schools will show growth in the future.”

New accreditation standards recently adopted by the Virginia Board of Education now look at a number of School Quality Indicators when determining a school’s accreditation status. For elementary and middle schools those qualities include academic achievement in English, math and science, as well as student subgroup performance in English and math. The final School Quality Indicator is Chronic Absenteeism. High schools in Virginia must also meet the benchmark in each of those areas as well as graduation rate and dropout rate.