Lynchburg City Schools continues to see more schools receive full accreditation from the state. This year LCS has 13 accredited schools. Both high schools met their graduation targets.
We are pleased with the improvements in many of our schools. We saw double digit gains in reading in various subgroups at Heritage High School, E. C. Glass High School, and Linkhorne Elementary School. We saw double digit gains in math in various grade levels at Linkhorne Elementary School, Heritage High School, Sandusky Elementary School, Bedford Hills Elementary School, and Bass Elementary School. At Bass Elementary and Dearington Elementary School for Innovation, there were double digit gains in various grade levels in both reading and math.
This is a lot to celebrate and our students, parents, and staff have worked very hard to make these gains.
Addressing both chronic absenteeism (students missing 18 or more days) and subgroup deficits remain top priorities. Efforts to address the performance of students with disabilities has resulted in improvements in some schools. At R. S. Payne, the pass rate for students with disabilities improved by 10 percentage points in math. At Linkhorne Middle School, the pass rate for students with disabilities improved by 10 percentage points in English. Also at LMS, the pass rate in English for students identified as Hispanic increased by 12 percentage points.
While we celebrate, we also continue to work to close achievement gaps. The detailed data provided with the new accreditation reports and other diagnostic assessment measures will allow us to meet student needs quickly by implementing targeted supports in place for students. Our goal is for all schools to be accredited and for every child to show academic growth each year.
Three schools are accredited with conditions due to deficits in English and/or math. Those schools are Linkhorne Middle School, Sandusky Middle School, and R. S. Payne Elementary School. Division and state level support is in place to assist these schools. We are currently working on strengthening our instructional practices and focusing the attention of our Professional Learning Communities (PLC) on analyzing student achievement data on a weekly basis. Our goal is for teachers to compare student results and make corresponding adjustments quickly.
The Virginia Board of Education adopted new accreditation standards for the 2018-2019 school year. Schools previously were identified as accredited if they meet the traditional benchmarks under the old accreditation system or by meeting the targets under the new accreditation standards. For the 2019-2020 school year, only the new standards are considered. The new accreditation system not only looks at pass rates for all students but also looks at achievement gaps between student groups, chronic absenteeism, graduation index, and dropout rate. The new system also recognizes student growth for students in Grades 4-8. Schools can earn either accredited or accredited with conditions status.Schools that fail to adopt or fully implement required corrective actions to address level three school-quality indicators may be denied accreditation.