Fredericksburg City, Stafford, and Spotsylvania schools have work to do ahead of a new accountability standard to be deployed next school year.
King George County is the only school division in the Fredericksburg area in which all schools are fully accredited. The other four school divisions—Caroline, Stafford, and Spotsylvania counties, and the City of Fredericksburg—have a mix of schools that are fully accredited and accredited with conditions, according to the 2024-25 accreditation ratings released by the Virginia Department of Education.
The accreditation system used for the current school year measures performance on a number of school quality indicators and assigns a Level One (at or above standard), Two (near standard), or Three (below standard) for each indicator.
Indicators include overall achievement in English, math, and science; achievement gaps in English and math between overall performance and performance by student subgroups; chronic absenteeism; dropout rate; graduation and completion index; and college, career, and civic readiness.
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The student subgroups that are considered when figuring the achievement gaps are Economically Disadvantaged; English Learners; Students with Disabilities; Asian; Black; Hispanic; Multiracial; and White.
Schools that score a Level One or Two on all quality indicators are rated as fully accredited. Those with one or more quality indicator at Level Three are accredited with conditions.
The 2024-25 accreditations are based on data and test results from the previous school year. According to the VDOE, 85.5% of Virginia’s schools are fully accredited and 13.9% are accredited with conditions.
For the 2023-24 school year, 89% of Virginia schools were fully accredited and 10% were accredited with conditions.
The state also identified more schools for targeted support and improvement (TSI) under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act for the current year than it did in previous years.
The VDOE announced in February of this year that “the increase in federally identified schools is driven by the Virginia Board of Education’s September 2022 adoption of requirements to close achievement gaps for Virginia’s most at-risk students, which reflects the Board’s commitment to higher expectations for schools across the Commonwealth.”
According to the VDOE’s guide to federal identification, schools identified annually for targeted support and improvement must have student groups that “do not meet the interim measure of progress in reading and mathematics for the previous two years” and “are in the lowest two quartiles for growth for one year in reading or math.”
For the 2022-23 school year, the VDOE identified only six TSI schools in the entire state—and none in the Fredericksburg area—according to reports published on its website.
For 2023-24, VDOE identified 149 TSI schools, including Spotsylvania and Thornburg middle schools in Spotsylvania and H.H. Poole and Stafford middle schools in Stafford.
This year, VDOE identified a total of 235 TSI schools, including seven in Stafford and Spotsylvania, one in King George, and one in Fredericksburg.
According to the state accreditation ratings for this year, Bowling Green Elementary and Caroline Middle School in Caroline County are accredited with conditions. Caroline High School and Lewis and Clark and Madison elementary schools are fully accredited.
In Fredericksburg, Hugh Mercer Elementary, Walker-Grant Middle, and James Monroe High are accredited with conditions, while Lafayette Elementary is fully accredited.
In Spotsylvania, Harrison Road Elementary, Battlefield and Thornburg middle schools, and Chancellor High are accredited with conditions.
In Stafford, Brooke Point High, and H.H. Poole and Stafford middle schools are accredited with conditions.
“This is a lot to digest, but none of this changes our collective commitment to meeting the needs of every student,” said Chris R. Fulmer, Stafford’s acting superintendent, in an email to the Advance. “Over the past three years we have initiated a number of improvements that will positively impact student achievement as they become instilled in Stafford’s culture. This is an opportunity to renew our collective focus on improving achievement for each of our student groups through quality Tier I instruction, targeted intervention, and additional wraparound support for every student.”
Lori Bridi, chief academic officer with Fredericksburg City Public Schools, said the division will “continue to focus on effective and engaging instruction to improve achievement for all students.”
“The accreditation reports highlight the trend of success across our division and areas where we continue to face challenges,” she said in an email to the Advance. “For example, no student group earned a ‘below standard’ performance level in English for the 2024-2025 school year, and we will continue working towards increased success in math achievement for students with disabilities.”
Bridi said the accreditation results align with information staff provided to the School Board last month and that the division will “maintain momentum by providing support for teaching and learning through professional development, classroom observations and feedback, and targeted interventions for students.”
Jesse Boyd, superintendent of King George schools, said he is “thrilled that all of our schools are once again fully accredited by the Virginia Department of Education.”
“This remains a testimony to the hard work and dedication of our teachers and staff who serve the students every day,” he said in an email. “We plan to use our student assessment data to focus our attention on our areas of need and target our instruction to meet the needs of all learners. I am pleased that we continue to see a positive trend within the subgroup data as we engage in continuous improvement.”
The State Board of Education in August approved a new accountability system that will be implemented next school year. According to the Virginia Mercury, the new system separates accreditation from accountability.
“Based on 2022-23 data, VDOE projects that 60.5% of schools are off track or would need intensive support according to the new accountability system standards,” the Mercury reported.
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