Petersburg High School 2018 graduates (Photo courtesy Petersburg City Public Schools)
Have Petersburg Public Schools turned a corner?
The school system has a long history of poor ratings and accreditation issues. But teaching and technology initiatives have been implemented over the past few years, and recent state rankings seem to indicate that the school system’s efforts are having an impact.
The system’s six schools are accredited for 2018-19 by the Virginia Department of Education. None received accreditation last school year.
Cool Spring Elementary and Walnut Hill Elementary are fully accredited. Lakemont Elementary, Pleasants Lane Elementary, Vernon Johns Middle and Petersburg High were accredited with conditions, which means that they were assessed as performing below standards on certain school-quality indicators.
Cyndee Blount, chief academic officer for Petersburg schools, attributed the achievement partly to new accreditation standards implemented this year, which take into account factors such as improvements in achievement and absenteeism instead of solely Standards of Learning testing.
“For the first time, we're truly attributing credit for student growth,” Blount says. “In the past, teachers were very frustrated with our system because a student may come in with a very low score, and they could gain as much as 100 points and still not make it across the pass line. But to gain 100 points, that's monumental growth.”
Students using Chromebooks at Vernon Johns Middle (Photo courtesy Petersburg City Public Schools)
For the past two years, Petersburg teachers have been asked to reorient their teaching strategies away from SOL fact-memorization and toward getting students to read, explore, engage and question, so they will pass the test as self-motivated, self-directed learners, Blount says.
The school division as a whole continues to work under a state corrective action plan to improve until all the district’s schools receive full accreditation.
The system has implemented other measures as well. One focus area since Superintendent Marcus Newsome assumed his duties in 2016 has been helping elementary school kids to read at grade level through modeling, guidance and independent practice — a balanced literacy approach.
“One of the things we studied is, ‘What foundational skills are our students missing?’ ” Blount says. “There are basic skills that our students need, the very first of that is you’ve got to be able to read.”
In the first year of the program, 38 percent of elementary students could read on grade level. That number rose to 56 percent last year.
A student uses a Chromebook at Walnut Hill Elementary. (Photo courtesy Petersburg City Public Schools)
Another effort in the works is providing students and teachers with technology that boosts learning. Two years ago, teachers didn’t have laptops. Now the school system has used grant money to provide Chromebooks to teachers and to students from third grade on.
“It's not just giving them the technology,” says Leigh Ann McKelway, the school system’s public information officer. “It's using the technology throughout instruction. ... It's a new way to approach instruction and learning that's much more engaging to these kids who are growing up in the 21st century.”
