<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=484CHM_0wClLzQq00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=484CHM_0wClLzQq00" width="800" height="500" ></figure>At an Oct. 10 meeting, Henrico School Board members addressed the drop in the number of Henrico’s fully accredited schools and expressed concerns about the state’s new accreditation system that will be implemented next year.Fourteen Henrico schools were designated as “accredited with conditions” by the Virginia Department of Education for the 2024-2025 year, meaning that these schools did not meet state standards in at least one “school quality indicator.” When including HCPS’ An Achievable Dream Middle &amp; High School, 22% of Henrico schools were not fully accredited this year, compared to 14% of Virginia schools.Five schools that were fully accredited last year were downgraded to accredited with conditions this year, while two schools, Varina High and Glen Lea Elementary, gained full accreditation status this year after being accredited with conditions previously.While the majority of HCPS’ elementary and high schools were fully accredited, only six of the district’s 13 middle schools received full accreditation this year. The middle school numbers are “staggering,” said board member Madison Irving (Three Chopt District), but he said they likely point to a larger systemic issue with middle school-aged students considering the impacts of the COVID pandemic.“If you correspond the age of those [middle school] students when COVID hit, they were in elementary school,” he said. “So I think systemically there’s something larger that’s going on here, where it would be irresponsible to just point blame at specific buildings and say, ‘you’re failing these kids’ when this is something that’s happening everywhere to everyone all around the country.”HCPS is targeting more remediation efforts towards its middle schools, with all middle schools now having reading coaches this year to help with literacy, said Chief of School Leadership Ingrid Grant.“I will say, middle schools across the state are struggling, but here in Henrico we are really honing in on our middle schools,” Grant said. “They had started making progress before COVID. Then COVID hit and we started seeing a decline again with our middle schools.”HCPS officials also noted that accreditation ratings still showed significant achievement gaps in math and English performance, particularly for the division’s Black students, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities.However, state accreditation ratings are only one measurement of school success, said board vice-chair Marcie Shea (Tuckahoe District), and students have often performed better on other assessments that HCPS uses.“This is just one piece of a lot of things we use to assess where our students are,” Shea said. “So this is not telling the full story of an individual student, much less a whole school or our whole division.”Henrico Schools has also been targeting its funding from each budget towards more high-need schools, HCPS Superintendent Amy Cashwell said, by tiering staffing and other supports based on which schools demonstrate more need.“Every budget we build, we’re differentiating the supports based on school needs,” she said. “So we’re looking at things like accreditation data, staffing turnover rates, all of those factors that we know make a difference in what the supports are that are needed.”Both Glen Lea Elementary Principal James Gordon and Varina High Associate Principal Dondre Lightfoot also spoke to the school board on efforts they implemented to help their schools achieve full accreditation. Gordon said that Glen Lea staff go into the community at St. Luke Apartments every month to serve food and encourage families to keep students attending school, which has helped boost school attendance.School board members also spoke out about the VDOE’s new school accreditation system, set to go into effect next school year, which will rate schools using four performance categories: “distinguished,” “on track,” “off track,” and “needs intensive support.” Under the new system, around 60% of Virginia’s schools will likely be labeled “off track” or “needs intensive support,” according to VDOE projections.Changing the entire accreditation system could lead to unintended consequences, board member Kristi Kinsella (Brookland District) said, especially because of other recent changes to math and reading standards, which could overwhelm and burden staff. Schools are also still struggling with staffing crises and have yet to fully recover from the pandemic, she said. Irving, who works as an economics teacher at James River High School in Chesterfield, said he has heard similar concerns from staff in his building.“To what Ms. Kinsella said about worrying about staff burnout and what that’s going to be, I experienced that in a [staff] meeting, just listening to all the changes, and these are department chairs who are arguably the most committed people within buildings,” Irving said. “And hearing people say, ‘that job at Capital One is looking very good,’ that’s extremely concerning to me.”Under the current system, high schools are rated on factors such as dropout rates and on-time graduation rates as well as academic performance. Henrico Schools’ dropout rate this year, 6.6% across the division, is the lowest since the pandemic hit, but still higher than Virginia’s average dropout rate of 4.5%.English Learner students are the most overrepresented student group when it comes to dropouts, with Hispanic students being the next highest group. Many older English Learner students who come to HCPS later in high school especially struggle to stay in school, Irving said.“As a teacher who has a lot of English language students, I think it’s almost certainly due to when we get high school students who are sometimes 17 or 18 years old and don’t speak any English,” he said. “We want to help them in every way that we can, but for somebody who’s 18 years old and is sitting in class with people who are way younger than them and they don’t speak the language, it becomes extremely difficult to give them reasons to come to school.”Of the 278 students who dropped out last year, some were students who had just recently arrived to the district, while some were students who had been with HCPS for many years and simply “fell through the cracks,” said Director of High School Education Thomas Ferrell. Each high school keeps data on students to track warning indicators for dropping out, particularly attendance.“Some fell through the cracks early on in high school, some came to us very late with either no credits or small numbers of credits and just kind of disappeared, so it really does vary,” Ferrell said. “It is a little more challenging when kids come to us late, but we’ve certainly had some students who were with us and due to just different circumstances weren’t able to complete high school.”School board chair Alicia Atkins (Varina District) recommended HCPS officials implement an “educational equity audit” to look further into the division’s achievement gaps, particularly among Black students, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities. “We do have a trend in Henrico County Public Schools – it is certainly getting better – but an educational equity audit will allow us to really identify root causes,” Atkins said. “If we really understand the root of the problem, then we can solve half of the battle.”Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s Report for America Corps member and education reporter. 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Henrico School Board responds to school accreditation ratings, dropout rates

At an Oct. 10 meeting, Henrico School Board members addressed the drop in the number of Henrico’s fully accredited schools and expressed concerns about the state’s new accreditation system that will be implemented next year. Fourteen Henrico schools were designated as “accredited with conditions” by the Virginia Department...