Date:   November 10, 2003
Contact: Irene Cromer
703-791-8720 

All eight of Prince William County Public Schools’ high schools, nine of thirteen middle schools, and forty-two of forty-seven elementary schools are fully accredited according to Virginia accreditation status reports released by the Commonwealth today.  The eighty-seven percent school accreditation rate for Prince William schools exceeds the seventy-eight percent rate for the State of Virginia, which reported that 1,414 of 1,823 schools met the standard.

Accreditation is based on compliance with the Virginia Standards of Accreditation and performance on the Standards of Learning tests.  For a school to be fully accredited, at least seventy percent of its students must pass the English, math, social studies, and science tests.  At 
the elementary school level, however, for social studies and science scores, schools can use either combined third and fifth grade scores, or fifth grade scores only to achieve the seventy percent passing rate.  Accreditation status for 2003-04 is based on performance during the 2002-03 school year.

The number of Prince William County schools fully accredited has increased each of the past three years, from eight in 2000, twenty in 2001, forty-three in 2002, to fifty-nine this year.
The number of elementary schools meeting State standards for accreditation rose from twenty-nine to forty-two.  Three years ago, none of the school division’s eleven middle schools, and only one high school, was fully accredited.  Currently, nine middle schools and all eight high schools have achieved that mark.  All schools have until 2007 to meet the Standards for Accrediting Public Schools in Virginia.

Superintendent of Schools Edward L. Kelly credits the school division’s outstanding staff for improved SOL scores and the increase in the number of accredited schools.

“I attribute the improvement to the coordinated effort of the teachers, principals, area associate superintendents, and the Department of Instruction,” Kelly said.  “All of these 
individuals working together have focused on learning and the need for improvement and that is why this has occurred.”

Pamela Gauch, the school division’s Associate Superintendent for Instruction, says that three factors should be credited for the school division’s dramatic improvement:  teachers are doing a better job of teaching the curriculum, frequent assessment is working, and the school division is “providing support to teachers through meaningful, relevant staff development.”

 According to Gauch, while remediation of failing students is important, the primary focus is “good first instruction, and staff development is aimed at that goal.”  She credits training for elementary teachers that focuses on the concepts of teaching reading and math.

 In addition to the great effort put forth by classroom teachers, Gauch also praises the school division’s Instructional Support Team (IST), a group of experienced teachers who provide support and hands-on training at the school level.

 The federal No Child Left Behind Act has led to “sharing responsibility for every child among all teachers,” Gauch says, which has resulted in better collaboration among teachers of 
regular education, special education, and Limited English Proficient (formerly known as English for Speakers of Other Languages) students.  “Many of our staff development programs help LEP and special education teachers work better in the content areas and give classroom teachers skills to better work with the LEP and special education students, she says.