County, city schools make some progress

By Amanda Stewart

Published: August 27, 2008

Many area schools made strides toward reaching federal mandates this year, according to preliminary results released by the Virginia Department of Education on Wednesday.

Based primarily on the results of Standards of Learning tests taken in the 2007-08 school year, 14 Prince William County schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress toward meeting the standards of the federal No Child Left Behind Act this year year, compared to 34 schools last year.

In Manassas Park, all four schools and the school division made AYP this year.

In Manassas, six out of eight schools, and the school division, did not make AYP.

Bruce McDade, Manassas Park’s associate superintendent for curriculum and technology, said school officials were “cautiously optimistic” about this year’s results after students finished taking the SOL tests in the spring.

“We were keeping our fingers crossed that our projections were correct and that we would do well,” McDade said.

In 2007, Manassas Park Middle School was the only of the city’s schools to fall short of the benchmarks.

“We just missed it last year,” McDade said. “We have a lot of good educators and the results are a testament to their hard work.”

In Prince William County, 12 middle schools, Bull Run, Marstellar, Gainesville, Graham Park, Saunders, Lake Ridge, Benton, Godwin, Parkside, Potomac, Stonewall and Beville, one high school, Gar-Field and one elementary school, Signal Hill, did not make AYP.

Twenty-two other schools that fell short of the benchmarks last year made AYP this year, according to the preliminary results.

“Although we will continue to strive to meet the goals of No Child Left Behind, we believe that preparing our students for life after high school and success in our ever-diversifying global community is a primary responsibility,” Pam Gauch, associate superintendent for student learning and accountability said in a statement.

In Manassas, six out of the city’s eight schools, Baldwin, Dean, and Weems elementary schools, Mayfield Intermediate School, Grace E. Metz Middle School and Osbourn High School did not make AYP.

Despite not making AYP, Superintendent Gail Pope said the city schools did make gains in several areas this year.

For example, Metz did not make AYP overall, but did meet the standards in math, which has been a focus at the school for the past several years, Pope said.

“We had a big focus on math,” Pope said. “We saw a great jump in math achievement so we’re very happy with that.”

Pope said all of the Manassas schools will be teaching a new writing program this year, which should help to improve reading scores.

To make AYP, schools must meet each of 29 objectives, many based on the results of state Standards of Learning tests.

For a school to make AYP this year,  77 percent of students overall and in all subgroups including white, black and Hispanic students, students with limited English proficiency, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students had to pass the state reading tests.

In addition, 75 percent of all students and of students in each subgroup had to pass the state math tests.

Many of the Manassas schools missed making AYP by just one or two categories, and in some cases by just a few students, Pope said.

Each year the benchmarks get slightly higher, making them slightly harder to reach, school officials said.

“The task gets more difficult every year, but we just have to work harder to reach it,” McDade said. “We feel we’re up to the challenge.”