Stephanie Lundquist-Arora | August 6, 2024
(Washington Examiner) — Last month, Virginia’s Board of Education approved new accreditation standards for the state’s public schools. In addition to the existing school quality indicators — academic achievement, academic achievement gaps, chronic absenteeism, the Graduation and Completion Index, dropout rates, and the College, Career, and Readiness Index — the state wants to make sure local districts are bringing their English learners up to grade standards.
Under the previous accreditation system, the state granted students who are classified in Fairfax County as “multi-language learners,” or previously, “English language learners,” 11 semesters of exemption from certain accreditation standards, such as standardized tests in reading. Now, English learners will be included in each school’s accreditation analysis after only three semesters. Public schools that do not fully adopt and fail to implement the state’s required corrective actions to address level three school-quality indicators will be denied accreditation.
Whether one agrees with the change or not, this undoubtedly creates an added burden for schools with high populations of ESOL students. Justice High School in Fairfax County, for example, has been accredited with conditions for the past two years. It is now on the brink of imminently losing accreditation, and other schools are likely to follow.
Virginia’s public schools are graded on a three-level scale in each accreditation category, with level one being the best and level three being the worst. Prior to the regulatory changes, multiple high schools in Fairfax County, including Justice High School, were performing poorly, particularly in two of the state’s categories: chronic absenteeism and cohort dropout rates. These schools include Herndon High School, Falls Church High School, Mount Vernon High School, Annandale High School, and Lewis High School.