Six Area Schools Granted Full Accreditation for 3 Years

By Amber Lester Kennedy Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Six Historic Triangle schools are being rewarded for high achievement with three years of full accreditation.

Williamsburg-James City County’s Jamestown High School and Matoaka Elementary and York County’s Grafton Bethel Elementary, Grafton High, Seaford Elementary and Tabb High were among 54 schools authorized waivers by the Virginia Department of Education on Monday. Each school receiving a waiver will remain fully accredited for three years. The schools qualified by achieving pass rates of 95 percent or higher in all four tested Standards of Learning (SOL) content areas – English, math, history/social science and science – for two consecutive years.

“The waivers provide an opportunity for high-achieving schools to try new approaches in covering the SOL content without worrying about a potential short-term impact on test scores and accreditation ratings,” said Patricia Wright, superintendent of public instruction for the state. “I encourage superintendents and principals to empower teachers in these schools to move away from excessive review and practice and focus instead on providing rich and varied instruction that exceeds the standards.”

The Board of Education authorized waivers from annual accreditation in 2006. The schools will still administer SOL tests and the results will still be reported. Qualifying school divisions had to apply for the waivers; this is the first year schools have applied for the waiver provision.

In a press release, Wright said several superintendents have complained about the rigorous test preparation that takes up the time of their best students. “While I reject the idea that accountability is a barrier to rich, in-depth instruction for all students, I wanted to remind school divisions of the flexibility that already exists in the accreditation standards for innovation and advanced teaching and learning,” she said.

WJCC Superintendent Steven Constantino said he was proud of the schools’ achievement, but wished similar flexibility was granted to struggling schools. “It seems to me that when we have schools that do have to struggle a little bit more to meet criteria, those would be the schools we would be offering some flexibility in exchange for accountability,” he said. That way, teachers could be more creative with their lesson plans, but still have to demonstrate their efforts to help children achieve.

He said it was too early to tell how the waivers will affect teachers’ plans for their classrooms. “I’m hoping it inspires our teachers to be as creative as they can in helping our kids achieve beyond the standards that have been set,” he said. “It might mean different things to different teachers, but I hope they will take advantage of this opportunity and there may be things we learn from these schools that we can apply to others.”