RICHMOND
— Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane today exercised emergency
authority granted to him by the 2020 General Assembly to waive annual school
accreditation for the 2021-2022 academic year. Schools will be assigned a
rating of “Accreditation Waived,” the same rating assigned schools for
2020-2021 under a waiver issued in April.
Accreditation
ratings are based on performance during the previous school year. The statewide
closure of schools in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic resulted in
the cancellation of spring Standards of Learning testing. Student performance
on SOL tests in English, mathematics and science are key metrics under the
state Board of Education’s school accreditation standards.
Without
spring 2020 SOL results, there is insufficient data for the Virginia Department
of Education to calculate accreditation ratings for the 2020-2021 school year.
And because year-to-year growth in English and growth in mathematics are also
accreditation metrics, VDOE won’t have sufficient data to calculate ratings for
2021-2022 either, because even if students are able to take tests next
spring, the department won’t have baseline data from 2019-2020 for
measuring growth.
In April,
Lane appointed a task force comprising division superintendents, testing
directors, educators, the vice president of the state Board of Education and
representatives of education professional organizations to study the impact of
the COVID-19 shutdown on the commonwealth’s school accountability system and
make recommendations on accreditation determinations for 2021-2022. Waiving
accreditation until there is sufficient baseline data to measure student growth
was one of two options recommended by the task force.
“Waiving
annual accreditation for a second year will allow our schools to focus on
assessing the impact of the shut down on students, academically and on their
social and emotional well-being,” Lane said. “It will also allow school
divisions to make decisions about resuming in-person instruction or reverting
to virtual learning that prioritize the health of students and staff, without
the added pressure of the possible impact on accreditation. If tests are
administered during the upcoming school year, the focus should be on evaluating
the impact of the pandemic on student learning and establishing a new baseline
for measuring student growth.”
The
Virginia Department of Education’s Office of School Quality will continue to
support schools implementing improvement plans based on their accreditation
ratings for 2019-2020.
