About 90,000 students will return to classes across the county. Except for the youngest children in the county’s Head Start program, who must continue to wear face masks, the start of the school year will feel more like pre-pandemic times.
No facemask or social distancing requirements are in place, and the school division won’t conduct contract tracing to identify who’s contracted the coronavirus.
The school division placed students’ class and bus schedules into its ParentVue application. Parents who want to track the location of their child’s school bus are encouraged to use the Here Comes the Bus Moblie App.
Schools Superintendent Dr. LaTanya McDade hired more than 1,600 new staff members, 1,00o of whom are certified teachers. The hires were made in the wake of a national teacher shortage.
The school division continues to search for new teachers despite the new hires, added McDade.
On Thursday, August 18, the Virginia Department of Education released the 2021-22 Standards of Learning (SOL) test results. While improved over the 2020-21 test results, Prince William County Public Schools students continue to lag behind the pre-pandemic scores in 2019.
“It is clear we still have a long road to full academic recovery. Although PWCS has realized increases in reading and math scores and remains above the state average, our SOL scores reaffirm the impact the pandemic has had on student learning,” said McDade.
Earlier this year, McDade led the development of a five-year strategic plan that aims to increase SOL scores, involve more parents in the learning process, end a “get tough” position on student discipline and hire more teachers based on diversity and race in a “You Belong Here” initiative.
The overall writing score dropped by nine points over the past year, with 70% of students showing mastery of the skill. Reading scores improved by two points, history and social sciences increased by 11 points, and math was up 12 points to 67%.
Economically disadvantaged students showed improvement across the board in all subjects. Those students posted the highest achievement in reading, with 64% of the population showing mastery of the skill.
In 2019, more than 80% of students in the school division were proficient in science and math, and 79% did well in reading.
Then Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) was the first in the U.S. to close school buildings due to the coronavirus in March 2020. The move forced students and parents to scramble to learn online from home, the effects of which have been disastrous, Virginia education officials said on Thursday.
Over the weekend, Prince William County School Board Chairman At-large Babur Lateef blamed politicians, public health officials, and the media for providing false information about the effects of the coronavirus on children and adults to keep school buildings closed.
Prince William Education Association members (teachers union) strapped tiny coffins to the tops of their cars. They paraded around the parking lot of the school division’s headquarters in October 2020, protesting efforts to return children to classrooms.
Prince William County returned children to classrooms in December of that year, making it the first in the Washington, D.C. area to bring children back to school.
