SCHOOL PERFORMANCE AND SUPPORT FRAMEWORK - Fredericksburg City Public Schools
An overview and analysis of how Fredericksburg schools scored according to the state's new accountability system.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Overview
The School Quality Profiles for Fredericksburg City Public Schools should be handled with caution. Parents, educators, and students need to understand the intricacies of the scoring system and not rely on top-line data to draw conclusions about the quality of education in any given school.
All Fredericksburg City schools are fully accredited. In the new system, accreditation is not related to academic performance, but to compliance with state requirements under the Standards of Accreditation.
Academic performance is now measured by the School Performance and Support Framework, which assigns each school a summative rating of either Distinguished, On Track, Off Track, or Needs Intensive Support. These ratings are based on scores, which in turn are based on points schools receive for three indicators—mastery of academic subjects; growth and readiness at the elementary and middle school level; and mastery, readiness, and graduation at the high school level.
In Fredericksburg, Hugh Mercer and Lafayette elementary schools were rated as Needs Intensive Support. Gladys West Elementary, which opened in August, was not considered for a rating under the new framework this year.
Walker-Grant Middle School and James Monroe High School were rated as Off Track.
Elementary Schools
Hugh Mercer and Lafayette earned summative scores of 72.7 and 74.8 points, respectively—scores that put them in the category of Off Track (between 65 and 79 points).
However, because the schools were identified under the state’s new methodology as being federal Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) schools, they were dropped to the lower category of Needs Intensive Support.
Schools are now identified as such if there is one or more student group that performs lower than a threshold score determined by VDOE in four categories—reading, math, science, and “overall.”
Hugh Mercer was identified because the performance of three student subgroups—English learners, Hispanic, and students with disabilities—was below the VDOE’s identified threshold score.
Thirty-three percent of the school’s population is made up of English learners. Last year, the VDOE started formally assessing these students for progress after three semesters of instruction. Under previous rules, English learners were not tested until they completed 11 semesters of instruction.
Lafayette was identified as a TSI school because of the performance of students with disabilities. This is a growing population across the region and state, and one where schools are struggling to recruit and retain qualified teachers.
Secondary Schools
Walker-Grant Middle and James Monroe High were both designated as Off Track—however, with a summative score of 78.2, Walker-Grant is within two points of being On Track, and James Monroe, with a score of 79.8, is within one-tenth of a point of that category.
Walker-Grant received 17.2 out of 20 total points for “readiness,” which considers chronic absenteeism and the number of students taking advanced coursework. It also was ranked the #1 school among those in VDOE’s Region 3 for growth in reading, with 61% of all students either meeting or exceeding growth expectations, according to the framework.
James Monroe High School received 41.7 out of 50 available points for mastery of academic subjects. About 78% of all students received scores of pass/advanced or pass/proficient on reading assessments, and about 83% received pass/advanced or pass/proficient scores on math assessments.
The area within the mastery indicator where James Monroe received the fewest number of points was in English learner progress. About 65% of students demonstrated no progress, according to the new framework. English learners make up just under 20% of the total student population at the high school.
Bottom Line
For individual school profiles, visit the Virginia Department of Education page for Fredericksburg City. Top-line scores are presented below.
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