SCHOOL PERFORMANCE AND SUPPORT FRAMEWORK - Stafford County Public Schools
An overview and analysis of Stafford's scores on the new state accountability system.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Overview
The School Quality Profiles for Stafford County 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 schools in the division are fully accredited. In the new system, accreditation is not related to academic performance, but to compliance issues.
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 Stafford, four schools (all of them high schools) have earned Distinguished; 17 schools are On Track; seven schools are Off Track; and two are Needs Intensive Support.
All but one of the schools that were ranked Off Track or Needs Intensive Support were placed in those categories not because of their summative ratings, but because one student subgroup “underperformed,” according to new methodology developed by the state. Therefore, the ratings do not necessarily reflect the academic performance of the entire school.
“Over the past year, we have seen dramatic shifts in how our schools are rated and reported to the public,” superintendent Daniel Smith said in a press release issued by the school division this week. “We are focused on ensuring that each student is learning and achieving their potential each and every day and we will not waiver in that approach.
He continued, “We must develop and implement systems of support to raise up our educators and empower them to do the important and critical work with our kids each day. While the formula continues to change, we remain steadfast in our commitment to high quality instruction in every classroom, every day, to support every child.”
High Schools
Of the county’s five high schools, four—Brooke Point, Colonial Forge, Mountain View, and North Stafford—earned Distinguished ratings, and Stafford High School was less than one point away from that rating.
During a presentation about the new accountability framework, Smith attributed much of this to the division’s focus on providing opportunities under the “3E” (enrollment, employment, enlistment) framework.
Under the new system, a quarter of the total score for high schools comes from points awarded for student 3E participation—for example, earning college credit through advanced placement, dual enrollment, or IB classes; earning credentials in high demand career and technical education classes; or scoring well on the military ASVAB test.
All of the Distinguished high schools earned almost or more than the maximum number of points available in the 3E category under the new framework.
In the press release, Smith said he is “exceptionally proud” of how the high schools performed and praised the “laser focus” of administrators and teachers on providing high quality instruction and preparing students for life after high school. “Our graduation rate continually exceeds the state average, we awarded 5,252 industry certifications last year, and we are lowering our chronic absenteeism rate,” he said. “We are doing the right things for students every day.”
Middle Schools
Seven out of the county’s eight middle schools were rated as On Track and one, Rodney Thompson, was less than a point away from earning the Distinguished rating.
Shirley Heim Middle School was rated as Off Track. In this week’s presentation, Smith noted that Shirley Heim was identified earlier this year—for the first time—as a Title I school, “so we have already identified that as a need.”
It is one of the most diverse middle schools in the county, with 73% of the population made up minority student groups: 40% Hispanic, 21% Black, 6% Asian, and 7% multiple races.
Elementary Schools
Of Stafford’s 17 elementary schools, eight were rated On Track (Anthony Burns, Conway, Garrisonville, Margaret Brent, Park Ridge, Rockhill, Rocky Run, Stafford, and Winding Creek).
Six schools were rated Off Track (Ferry Farm, Grafton Village, Hampton Oaks, Hartwood, Kate Waller Barrett, and Widewater) and two (Anne E. Moncure and Falmouth) were rated Needs Intensive Support. In all of these cases, the schools earned points under the new framework that would have placed them one category higher, but they were dropped due to being identified as federal “targeted support and improvement,” or TSI, schools.
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.”
Ferry Farm and Grafton Village were identified as TSI schools and downgraded to Off Track—though their scores place them in the On Track category—due to the performance of English language learners.
In the presentation this week, Smith pointed out that the VDOE last year changed when English language learners are formally assessed for progress. Under previous rules, they were not tested until they had 11 semesters of instruction; now they are tested after three semesters.
“We are already seeing the impact of that,” Smith said this week. Student progress in English proficiency counts for 10% of a school’s total framework score at all levels.
Hampton Oaks, Hartwood, Barrett, and Widewater were dropped from On Track to Off Track, and Moncure and Falmouth from Off Track to Needs Intensive Support, because of the performance of students with disabilities. This is a student group that has been increasing in all local school divisions in recent years, and also is an area to which—statewide—it is challenging to recruit and retain teachers.
Widewater Elementary, according to information provided by the division at this week’s presentation, provides another example of how the methodology for identifying TSI schools can obscure where students are actually performing well. At Widewater, the student group identified as being “multiple races” was low-performing, in addition to students with disabilities, according to the state.
Widewater students from the multiple races category actually performed almost 10 points higher than the threshold in science. However, because just 11 students took the science SOL, that category was removed from consideration, and the school was identified as TSI based on the performance of the multiple races category in reading, math, and overall—three out of four categories instead of required four out of four.
Under the previous accountability system, student groups were not removed from consideration unless there were fewer than 30, but the new system has lowered that “n-count” to fewer than 15.
Top 5
The Virginia Department of Education also produced a list of the Top 5 schools in a number of areas for each of the Superintendent Regions in the state. The schools in the Advance’s readership area, including Stafford, are a part of Region III which includes 17 school districts.
The following Stafford schools earned Top 5 ratings in Region III:
Margaret Brent Elementary
#2 Elementary School by Total Points
#2 for Mastery in Reading
#4 for Mastery in Math
#4 for Mastery in Science
#1 for English Learner Progress
Hartwood Elementary
#3 Elementary School by Total Points
#4 for Readiness-Chronic Absenteeism (measurement based on the percent of students who were NOT chronically absent)
#3 for English Learner Progress
Stafford Elementary
#4 Elementary School by Total Points
#4 for Growth in Reading
#4 for English Learner Progress
Kate Waller Barrett Elementary
#5 for English Learner Progress
Rodney Thompson Middle
#1 Middle School by Total Points
#1 for Mastery in Reading
#1 for Mastery in Math
#2 for Mastery in Science
#3 for Growth in Reading
#3 for Growth in Math
#2 for Advanced Coursework
#3 for Chronic Absenteeism
#3 for English Learner Progress
A.G. Wright Middle
#3 for Mastery in Reading
#3 for Chronic Absenteeism
#4 for English Leaner Progress
T. Benton Gayle Middle
#5 for Mastery in Reading
#4 for Growth in Reading
#5 for Growth in Math
#5 for English Learner Progress
Edward E. Drew Middle School
#4 for Growth in Math
#2 for English Learner Progress
H.H. Poole Middle School
#1 for Advanced Coursework
#1 for English Learner Progress
Mountain View High
#3 High School by Total Points
#1 for Mastery in Reading
#5 for Mastery in Science
#5 for Mastery in Math
#5 for English Learner Progress
#3 for Graduation Rate
#3 for Chronic Absenteeism
#2 for 6-Year Graduation Rate
North Stafford High
#2 for English Learner Progress
#4 for Mastery in Math
Colonial Forge High
#4 for Mastery in Science
#4 for Four-Year Graduation Rate
#3 for English Learner Progress
#2 for Mastery in Math
Brooke Point High
#4 for English Learner Progress
#3 for Six-Year Graduation Rate
Bottom Line
For individual school profiles, visit the Virginia Department of Education page for Stafford County. Top-line scores are presented below.
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