PWCS Announces All Schools Are Accredited

All Prince William County Public Schools (PWCS) are accredited under Commonwealth accreditation guidelines, Superintendent of Schools Steve Walts announced Sept. 20. However, a few schools received provisional or warning status. 

“At nearly all levels, our students are exceeding the content-area benchmarks required for accreditation,” said Walts. “With the advent of the new, more rigorous standards and assessments, these benchmarks are challenging and represent high levels of performance for our schools.Prince William County residents can be proud of their schools and the high achievement of our students.”

The Virginia Department of Education notified school divisions of accreditation ratings last week, based on performance during the 2012–13 school year, or a 3-year average.

According to Irene Cromer, Supervisor of Community Relations for Prince William County Schools,  95 percent of PWCS are fully accredited. 

At the middle school level, Cromer said 94 percent of the Division’s 16 middle schools are fully accredited. However, Fred M. Lynn Middle School is accredited "with warning in English and mathematics, indicating the need to enhance performance in those subjects. All other middle schools are fully accredited." 

At the high school level, Cromer reports that 73 percent of schools received full accreditation. However, Freedom High School is provisionally accredited, having met all requirements in English, mathematics, science and history, the provisionally status, said Cromer is, "due to its graduation rate, which continues to improve and is on track to meet the required benchmark by 2015." 

Cromer said that Gar-Field and Stonewall Jackson High Schools were both accredited, but received with warning in mathematics.

According to PWCS, to be fully accredited, schools must meet set benchmarks on the Standards of Learning tests in all four content areas. The benchmark for English is 75 percent and for mathematics, science, and history/social studies the benchmark is 70 percent.

In addition, at the high school level, there is a graduation benchmark, using a measure called the Graduation and Completion Index (GCI) that provides points to students for receiving diplomas, GEDs, etc., and staying in school. The full accreditation benchmark for 2013-14 ratings is a GCI value of 85. The provisional benchmark for 2013-14 ratings is a GCI value of 82.