Virginia’s New Accountability System: Your Student’s Participation & Success is Key!

West Potomac Families Families,

 

As you may know, all public schools in Virginia have to perform at certain high levels to be considered accredited by the state.  Our school is fully-accredited (and has been for many years) based on meeting previous accreditation standards that included SOL test pass rates, graduation rates, and thresholds for advanced coursework and related career/college readiness experiences.

 

This is to inform you that this school year, the Virginia Department of Education enacted a new accountability system for all public schools in the commonwealth.  All of the information about how this works can be found here, and I encourage you to read about the framework and how the different areas of accountability translate into points for “Overall School Performance” ratings.

 

All of our students’ work impacts our performance within this new accountability system.  I would like all of our families to be informed of this so that we can work together to produce the best outcomes for our students.  Also, as the school sends out information and reminders about SOL testing, AP exams, school attendance, and opportunities to increase or recover grades, I want you to see how these fit into the big picture of school accountability.  

 

As noted on the VDOE site, high school performance is rated in 3 categories (Mastery, Readiness, & Graduation).  Each category is weighted differently, and within each category are multiple components of student achievement with different point values.  See graphics below.

This is a new system, and we are learning more about it regularly.  The good news is that we have always had good plans in place to support your students so that they perform well in SOL and end-of-course exams, and we have strong systems for monitoring and supporting students so that they graduate on time.  

 

In the coming weeks, we will publish our SOL testing schedule and exam schedule for students in AP/IB/Dual Enrollment courses.  Participation rates and scores in all of these tests is part of the new accountability framework (SOL test participation and scores are factored into the Mastery category, and advanced course (AP, IB, ASVAB, etc.) exam participation and scores factor into the Readiness category in the 3E component).  We need your support, as always, to ensure that students study and do their best work on these tests.  We also need your support to ensure that they are here and on-time on those test days.

 

As always, thank you for your partnership.  We look forward to making the most of the final four months of school!

 

Jessica Statz, Principal