All 10 CCPS Schools are Accredited
On Monday, September 25, 2023, Culpeper County Public Schools (CCPS) Executive Director Rob Hauman presented an instructional update to the School Board at the regular work session. Information presented include the recently released Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) 2023-2024 Accreditation Ratings based on the 2022-2023 Standards of Learning (SOL) data.
Accreditation in Virginia is based on school quality indicators, which include English, Math, and Science SOL pass rates for all students, achievement gap summaries in English and Math, and Student Engagement and Outcomes, which includes chronic absenteeism. Dropout Rate, Graduation and Completion Index and College, Career, and Civic Readiness Index are also included for high schools. All ten schools in CCPS are accredited based on this year’s ratings. Sycamore Park Elementary is listed as “accredited with conditions” due to the fact that they did not have an accreditation waiver from previous year’s reports, but they earned the 2023 VDOE Exemplar Award for Continuous Improvement.
Highlights from the accreditation data include that our elementary schools met the level one standard in twenty-one out of thirty academic indicators. In our middle schools, math achievement and the math achievement gap reporting categories both met the level one standard. In our high schools, all English, Math, and Science Academic indicators met the level one standard except for one. Both high schools also met the level one standard for the College, Career, and Civic Readiness Index, which was new this year.
Like most schools across the state, we continue to struggle with Chronic Absenteeism after attendance rates declined after the pandemic. Most of our schools fall within level two for chronic absenteeism, making progress in this area from 21-22 to 22-23. During the 2021-2022 school year, 33.9% of our students missed ten percent or more of the school year, making them “chronically absent.” But in 2022-2023, we reduced that number to 24.5% of students who were chronically absent. We will continue to work to reduce this number. On September 7, 2023, Governor Youngkin said, “If students aren’t in school, they will not catch up…parents, we need you engaged. We know your lives are busy. We need you to get your kids to school.”
Looking at the data overall, the real story is that when our students attend school, they are making steady progress. School matters. Since the pandemic shutdown, CCPS has been addressing the academic needs of our students strategically and the data is trending upwards. The CCPS systematic approach has included support for our teachers’ professional growth and effective instruction for all grade levels, which includes curriculum reframing to meet students where they are. In addition to what they are doing during the school year, we have had three years of summer academy programs and extended day programs to address unfinished learning. The result has been that each year since the pandemic, our students are starting off the year higher than they did the previous year.
CCPS Director of Elementary Instruction, Karie Lane, said, “We are closing gaps. The focus should not be on lost instructional time but on the hard work that is being done to close instructional gaps and highlighting the successes along the way, and there are many!” Lane explained that looking at fall data, which is more recent than the SOL scores used in the accreditation data, all elementary grade levels are starting this school year higher in reading than last year’s students at that grade except for one, which is equal to where they were last year. In math, all elementary grade levels are starting the 2023-2024 school year higher than they started last year. Lane explained, “Looking at our data, this year’s fifth grade students are back to pre-pandemic norms and the 3rd and 4th graders will be before they go to middle school.”
The data shows us that what we are doing matters. The instruction that occurs with our students every day makes a difference. The growth that we are seeing in our schools is a testament to the teachers, paraeducators and administrators who are doing the work with our students.
Culpeper County Public Schools is proud of the gains being made by our students every day. We will continue to assess where we are and address areas that need improvement. We look forward to celebrating the continued progress of our students.