HARRISONBURG — The Virginia Department of Education is set to release accreditation information later this week based on scores on Standards of Learning tests taken by students during the 2017-18 school year.
Preliminary reports indicate all schools in Harrisonburg City Public Schools will be fully accredited except Skyline Middle School, which will accredited with conditions based upon a few subgroups in English, said Patrick Lintner, HCPS interim superintendent.
The department is expected to release the accreditation report on Thursday.
Last year, Harrisonburg’s Skyline Middle School was “partially accredited reconstituted,” which means the district needed to come up with a plan to improve the school’s English scores, following subpar pass rates for four years.
Bluestone Elementary School, conditionally accredited in 2017 because it was the first year the school was open, should be fully accredited this year, officials say.
“The changes In the accreditation formula places more emphasis on growth in math and English,” Lintner said. “It is certainly a better way to gauge the effectiveness of work.”
Oskar Scheikl, Rockingham County Public Schools superintendent, could not be reached for comment Monday regarding his division’s expected accreditation status.
Last year, all 23 schools in the county were fully accredited.
This year’s area SOL test results mirrored statewide trends of lower pass rates. The state uses the standardized tests to measure student proficiency in four core subjects — English reading, mathematics, science and history/social science.
In August, the state released the first SOL results under revised Standards of Accreditation that consider closing achievement gaps, reducing chronic absenteeism, raising graduation rates and reducing dropout rates.
RCPS achieved a 79 percent pass rate on the English test, down from 81 percent for the past three years. Math dipped to 81 percent, and science pass rates fell to 84 percent; both were at 86 percent in 2016-17.
County students achieved an 85 percent pass rate on the history test, down from 87 percent in 2016-17 and 88 percent the year before.
Harrisonburg’s English pass rate dropped 2 points to 63 percent, while science dropped 3 points to 72 percent. The history pass rate dropped 4 points to 76 percent.
The biggest change was on the math SOL, which saw pass rates drop 5 percentage points to 67 percent after two years at 72 percent.
Last year, 86 percent of schools in Virginia were fully accredited with only 5 percent denied accreditation.