All schools meet AYP benchmarks
Halifax County school administrators announced on Friday that all of the county's public schools have met the federal NCLB (No Child Left Behind) benchmarks for the 2008-2009 school year. This is the fifth consecutive year the division has made AYP.
School officials were especially pleased with the performance of Halifax County Middle School which last year did not meet the AYP standards, despite the fact that this year's benchmarks set a higher passing rate percentage than last year.
The revisions in the AYP benchmarks for this year included pass rates rising to 75 percent from the previous year's 71 percent in mathematics and a 77 percent pass rate in reading, up from 73 percent the previous year.
Halifax County schools saw their performance rate on the mathematics test rise from 76.62 percent last year to 83.55 percent this year. Reading tests rates climbed from 82.59 percent last year to 87.16 percent this year.
Superintendent of Schools Paul Stapleton commented, "This is an outstanding accomplishment for Halifax County and we are very proud of our schools. Our teachers, students and principals have stepped up to the challenges put forth by the NCLB benchmarks."
Deputy Superintendent Larry Clark added his praise, saying the achievement "is very positive for our schools, teachers and support from the Central Office staff as well as parents. This is a group act that takes everyone to do what we do."
Clark noted that all students Ñ including those in subcategories for ethnic origin, disadvantaged and disabled Ñ must meet the same passing rate guidelines.
Next year the guidelines will increase by another four percentage points, moving the reading requirements to a passage rate of 81 percent and the math rates to 79 percent.
Another change for next year will include requirements by NCLB to add science with the current requirements of math and reading. Joe Griles, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, said, "historically, our students have scored well in the area of science for state accreditation, and we feel this trend will continue this year as science is added to NCLB AYP requirements."
For a school or division to make AYP, it must meet or exceed 29 benchmarks, including having at least 95 percent of all students participate in the statewide SOL tests. All students in the county's public schools in grades three through eight and high school End-of-Course assessments participate.
Also another component of achieving AYP is a requirement of a 94 percent attendance rate for all students. Elementary schools in Halifax County maintain an average attendance slightly above 95 percent.
Griles commented, "Our teachers and principals are true professionals who are dedicated to helping all of our students. We celebrate all of their successes and commend them for this noteworthy accomplishment in meeting the NCLB AYP requirements as well as all schools being fully accredited by the Commonwealth of Virginia.Ó
Team members of the committee that headed up the AYP performance testing headed by Nancy Zirkle, Supervisor for Assessment and Professional Development, were Valdiva Marshall, Executive Director of Federal Projects, Frosty Owen, Supervisor of Secondary Education, Linda Owen, Supervisor of Elementary Education and Leon Johnson, Director of Pupil Personnel.

 

Attendance numbers revised

The official attendance numbers for Halifax County Public Schools were released as of Friday, August 22 after earlier reports had proved to be somewhat erroneous.
On Friday afternoon Deputy School Superintendent Larry Clark said the official attendance count was 5,657 students. Of that number Halifax County High School had 1,809 students enrolled, while Halifax County Middle School had a total enrollment of 1,333. Total enrollment at the two secondary schools was 3,142.
The two new elementary schools had the highest enrollments of all the elementary schools with South Boston topping the list at 742 students and Cluster Springs having 658. Sinai has 263 students enrolled with Scottsburg having 248 and Sydnor Jennings 246. Meadville has 203 students while Clays Mill has the smallest enrollment of 155 students. Elementary enrollment totaled 2,515 on Friday.
Clark said the county is basing its request for state aid on a daily membership of 5,700 students. He noted that he expects the system's enrollment to meet those figures, and probably exceed them by the time the official count is done by the state. "Each year," Clark said, "we get students enrolling after the starting day." Earlier attendance figures furnished by Clark had been found to be erroneous due to computations done by the computer system.