Smyth schools earn state accreditation

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

Smyth County school officials anticipated a development that the Virginia Department of Education has confirmed. The division is among the 95 percent of school districts across the state to be accredited by the Virginia Board of Education on the basis of 2007-08 assessments in English, mathematics, history and science.
The statewide achievement is a benchmark in its own right in a decade-old program of setting standardized benchmarks for students, their schools and school systems. The 95-percent accreditation rate is the highest seen in the 10 years that Standards of Learning have shaped Virginia education.
The state accreditation comes two months after news that three county schools, and thus the school division as a whole, failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, a standard under the federal No Child Left Behind legislation.
Marion Intermediate, Marion Primary and Sugar Grove Combined schools did not meet target scores that are raised by 4 percent every year.
While it seems incongruous that a school division that did not meet AYP standards could be accredited, Smyth School Superintendent Dr. Mike Robinson said the measures are “two paths” of achievement. AYP, he said, considers students’ reading, math and language proficiency, while state accreditation reflects performance in a broader selection of subjects including history, social studies and science.
Accreditation also counts remediation efforts brought to bear on scores that fell below AYP requirements and pools all schools’ scores, Robinson said.
“It’s two different formulas,” he said.
“Nearly all Virginia children now attend schools that are exceeding the commonwealth’s minimum expectations for student achievement,” said Superintendent of Public Instruction Billy K. Cannaday Jr. “That so many schools are now moving beyond minimum standards for competence and proficiency and towards academic excellence is a credit to the educators, elected leaders, policy makers and parents whose sustained support for reform has been essential in raising student achievement.”