Some Fredericksburg School Board members are concerned about how division will fare under new system.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Both the Fredericksburg and Stafford school boards were introduced this week to the new state school accountability system—and in Fredericksburg, School Board members said they are worried about how the division will fare under the new system.
“I am not feeling optimistic,” said Malvina Kay, Ward 4 representative to the Fredericksburg School Board, at Monday’s meeting.
The state Board of Education approved the new accountability system—which is called the Virginia School Performance and Support Framework—this summer. It will go into effect in the fall of 2025 and will be based on data from this school year.
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Under the current system, which has been in place since 2018, schools are accredited based on both compliance with state and federal regulations and on student outcomes.
The new system splits accreditation from student outcomes. Schools will be accredited, conditionally accredited, or have accreditation denied based only on compliance with the state Standards of Quality and Standards of Accreditation.
Student outcomes will be used to identify schools in need of federal support under the Every Student Succeeds Act and to provide each school in the state with a “summative rating” of either distinguished, on-track, off-track, or needing intensive support.
The summative rating will be based on three components—content mastery, growth, and readiness. Schools earn points for the different components for a total of 100 points, but the component parts have different weights depending on whether the school is elementary, middle, or high.
For example, in elementary schools, content mastery is the most important factor, accounting for 65% of total points. Forty-five percent of the points are based on performance on reading and math Standards of Learning tests and on the Virginia Alternate Assessment test, which is taken by eligible students with disabilities.
At the high school level, mastery accounts for 50%, while readiness—which considers chronic absenteeism, the six-year graduation rate, and the “Ready for Life 3E Framework” (enrollment, employment, enlistment)—counts for 35%.
Schools that receive 90 points will be considered “distinguished” and those with 80 to 89 points “on-track.”
Schools that receive between 65 and 79 points will be considered “off-track” and will receive “Tier 2” support from the state Department of Education, while those with below 65 points will receive more intensive state support.
According to the Virginia Mercury, the VDOE projects that, based on 2022-23 data, 60.5% of Virginia’s schools are off track or would need intensive support according to the new standards.
Lori Bridi, Fredericksburg’s chief academic officer, said on Monday that “we’re unsure what the state supports will look like.”
This year, Lafayette Elementary is the only one of the city’s four schools to be fully accredited—the other three are “accredited with conditions.”
Kay asked Bridi what summative rating city schools would receive based on current SOL pass rates. Bridi said the VDOE has released the elementary school template but that she was “hesitant to share” its projections with the Board until staff have received training from the state, because there is still “guessing” involved.
According to the Virginia Mercury, the new rules also reduce the number of semesters that new English speakers are exempt from accountability calculations from 11 to three.
Fredericksburg School Board member Kathleen Pomeroy, Ward 2 representative, said this amounts to “statewide discrimination” against diverse divisions such as Fredericksburg, where students speak more than 40 different languages aside from English.
“We need to rise up and make a stink about this,” she said.
Kay said she’s worried about academic achievement among minority groups, which make up the majority of students in city schools.
She said that for all of the “many years” she has served on the School Board, “it seems that we are dealing with the same issue.”
“Until minority achievement comes to the right level, we will never be accredited, and I think it’s time that we hold each other accountable for that, because we keep skirting around it,” Kay said. “It moves a little and then it doesn’t. The years that I’ve been on the board that we’ve been successful was the result of the Board giving leeway to think out of the box, and it wasn’t sustainable, because here we are and we’re dealing with some of the same issues.”
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