Class passing rates dropped from 86.3 percent to 84.8 percent in county middle schools in the second quarter. The number of middle school students that are failing two or more subjects increased from 5.2 percent in the first quarter to 6.5 percent in the second quarter.
According to Dr. Jennifer Cassata, a director and researcher of Accountability and Strategic planning for the county schools, the overall proportion of students failing two or more classes is similar to the rate during the 2019-2020 school year, which was 5.2 percent. However, the rate is significantly lower than the 2020-2021 school year, which was 17.9 percent.
Passing rates for county high school students also saw a drop from 69.9 percent in the first quarter to 65.7 percent in the second quarter. The number of high school students failing two or more subjects increased from 16.8 percent in the first quarter to 20.3 percent in the second quarter.
As for middle school numbers, the failure rates were higher than seen in the 2019-2020 school year, 15.1 percent. However, the failure rate was also lower than the 2020-2021 school year, 26.3 percent.
Despite the drop, the data showed that most students across the different school levels were still passing their lessons.
However, middle and high schools saw their highest failure rates among English Language learners, students with disabilities, and Hispanic students. While those groups have lower failure rates than they did in the 2020-2021 school year, they are still higher than the division average for the school system.
Occoquan Representative Lillie Jessie expressed concern for the number of failure rates for those student cohorts and asked when they would get to see some of the root causes of the rates.
“When I look at the numbers, I wonder, why? And when we’re going to get some information on this,” said Jessie.
The Prince William County School Board received a presentation dealing with updated data that would compare student progress between the first and second quarters of the 2021-2022 school year. Reading levels are up for elementary school students in Prince William County, but there’s a long way to go to bring students back up to speed.
The county has been highly concerned with remedying student learning loss throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
While some numbers showed some marked improvement in some areas, other data points show that the road back will be a long and arduous one.
“Our data continues to show that we must remain steadfast in our work and remain deliberative in our approach to deal with learning gaps,” said Schools Superintendent Dr. LaTanya McDade.
According to Cassata’s data, 68 percent of elementary school students (grades 1-5) in the county were reading at or above their grade level in the second quarter. This is a five percent improvement from the school year’s first quarter.
The most significant improvement came from the fifth-grade class, where 75 percent were reading at their grade level or higher.
Another takeaway from the data is that virtual students scored higher in their subjects than in-person students. However, there is a vast difference in the number of virtual students versus in-person students. Over 200 elementary students are on virtual learning in the county, while over 19,000 students returned to he classroom.
Overall, McDade added that the data was but one aspect of the bigger picture and didn’t tell the whole story. The superintendent said that she planned to stay the course on the a strategic plan that had been developed to address unfinished learning.
Coles District Representative Lisa Zargarpur suggested the failures could be attributed to the “second-quarter lull.” According to Zargapur, learning rates drop slightly from the first to the second quarter due to the holiday season. A January snowstorm also kept students out of class for a week.
“When it feels like you’re struggling like you’re underwater, I don’t want any of our students to think, that’s it, you’re done. That’s the end of your career. Because we have all these people who want to support and I just wanted to make sure our students hear that as well,” said Zargapur.
McDade said that the data was being dispersed to the schools to help them plan and strategize their next steps in tackling the learning loss issues. School Board Chairman, At-large Babur Lateef, stated that getting students back on track was his and the board’s number one priority.
Only 54 percent of Prince William County students passed the state’s Standards of Learning math test in 2021, down from 83 percent in 2019. The SOLs took a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic when students were forced to learn virtually from home.
Only 57 percent passed the science test, down from 81 percent in 2019. Seventy-two percent of children passed the English-reading test, down from 79 percent in 2019.
