The seven-member Albemarle County School Board will meet on Thursday. The agenda sets aside 45 minutes to hear a report from a consultant on an audit they requested on the system’s ability to educate students on reading and math.
“ACPS outperforms the state of Virginia on a number of key achievement measures,” reads the staff report. “Historically within the district, however, performance on these same measures varies greatly, with students of color and economically disadvantaged students demonstrating far less achievement than their white peers.”
There are three separate reports from the firm Bellwether including a root cause analysis and a student experience report. It’s all to answer a basic question:
“Why are pass rates for ACPS students of color on the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs) for K-5 reading, K-5 math, and high school Algebra 1 lower than the averages for other students of color in the state and lower than their peers in other demographic groups in ACPS?”
This spring, a team from Bellwether visited 11 county schools and spoke with over 350 people. There’s a lot of material to review and I hope to be able to produce a longer report sometime in the near future.
Resources:
- The presentation to the Albemarle County School Board
- Report 1: The Holistic Experiences of Students of Color
- Report 2: Classroom Level Experiences of Students of Color
- Report 3: Role of Systems and Structures in the Achievement of Students of Color
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