Superintendent: all nine Orange County schools fully accredited; attendance and graduation trends improving
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Summary
Division leaders told the board Dec. 9 that under the VDOE's new accountability system all nine schools are fully accredited, chronic absenteeism has fallen substantially (high school recent run ~18%), and the Class of 2025 graduation rate is about 97.5%.
During a detailed "state of the schools" presentation, the superintendent and division testing coordinator explained the new VDOE accreditation and accountability framework and reported division‑wide improvements.
Superintendent (presentation) said the division met all required benchmarks and, "we do not have any schools that are federally identified," a milestone the administration said had not occurred since before 2019. Staff described the accountability calculation as a composite of mastery, growth and readiness metrics; examples given included kindergarten ratios and subject mastery weightings for elementary, middle and high school measures.
The presentation emphasized chronic absenteeism as a readiness metric. The superintendent explained how the measure is calculated — students missing 10% of the school year (18 or more days) are counted as chronically absent — and said the high school’s chronic absenteeism has fallen from a historical high to roughly 18% in recent monitoring runs. The superintendent also flagged graduation improvements and said the Class of 2025 graduation rate was "upwards of 97.5 percent."
Administration said it had re‑entered two years of past data into the new model to produce comparable baselines and that some reported school scores were rounded for reporting purposes. As a follow up, the board scheduled a January work session at which each of the nine principals will present school improvement plans and additional detail on the data.
What happens next: principals will brief the board at the January work session with school‑level plans and staff will continue to monitor attendance and accountability changes as the VDOE refines its system.