York County School Division :: Top News

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) 2009-10

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 8:30:00 EST

August 12, 2010 - Based on a review of preliminary data, all York County School Division schools will again meet the state's highest accreditation standards. Additionally, 13 division schools met federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards as a result of student performance on Standards of Learning (SOL) exams taken last spring.

The division did not make AYP for English performance within specific sub-groups of students: disadvantaged, limited English proficient and students with disabilities. Two elementary schools, Magruder and Yorktown, also did not make AYP in English for disadvantaged students. Yorktown also did not make AYP in English for black students. Both Magruder and Yorktown elementary schools preliminarily met accreditation standards.

The divisions middle schools - Grafton Middle, Queens Lake Middle, Tabb Middle and Yorktown Middle - preliminarily met accreditation standards but did not make AYP. Within specific sub-groups of students taking English SOL exams, Queens Lake Middle (black students and disadvantaged), Tabb Middle (students with disabilities) and Yorktown Middle (disadvantaged and students with disabilities) did not make AYP. Within a specific sub-group of students taking math SOL exams, Grafton Middle (disadvantaged) did not make AYP.

AYP Progress for Virginia Public Schools
	Made AYP	Did Not Make AYP	To Be Determined	Total
School Results	1,104 (60%)	726 (40%)	6 (<1%)	1,836
Division Results	12 (9%)	120 (91%)		132

Highlights of student performance by level include:

Elementary:

The Elementary English scores continued to be strong with an overall student success rate at or above 87 percent for all schools.
Elementary math success rates were particularly impressive. All 10 elementary schools experienced overall pass rates of 96 percent or higher.
Science pass rates for the elementary schools ranged from 88 to 99 percent. Eight of 10 schools maintained or increased their pass rates from the previous year.
History pass rates ranged from 92 to 99 percent. Six of 10 schools maintained or exceeded last year's pass rates.

Middle School:

Middle school English pass rates for all students increased at three of four middle schools, with pass rates at or above 91 percent at Grafton, Tabb and Yorktown Middle.
All four schools demonstrated considerable improvement in middle school math pass rates, with overall student pass rates above 90 percent for three of four middle schools (Grafton, Tabb and Yorktown). Most notably the pass rate for all students at Queens Lake increased by seven percentage points from the previous year (79% to 86%) and Yorktown Middle improved by 10 percentage points (80% to 90%).
The writing performance of our middle school students improved in three schools and held strong at the fourth.
The middle schools posted significant gains in the area of history.
Science scores also rose for all four middle schools.

High School:

High School English pass rates were strong and ranged from 90 to 98 percent.
Four high schools had pass rates of 91 percent or above in writing. The pass rate for YRA was 100 percent.
Math performance held strong with an overall student pass rate for four high schools ranging from 90 to 98 percent.
Science performance for the high schools was also strong.
History performance for the high schools ranged from 90 to 100.

New Graduation Requirement

This year, the state required all high schools and division meet a new graduation standard, the Federal Graduation Index (FGI). As the Other Academic Indicator (OAI) for high schools and the division, at least 80 percent of students must graduate with a standard or advanced studies diploma to meet AYP.

All four high schools improved their FGI rates for all students:

BHS (75% to 81%)
GHS (88% to 90%)
THS (89% to 93%)
YHS (78% to 89%)
YRA (100%)

For YCSD, the division did not meet the new FGI requirement for students with disabilities. However, the 4-year rates improved for YCSD for all students and in four of the six subgroups. Improvements are as follows:

All (83% to 89%)
Black (68% to 76%)
Hispanic (86% to 92%)
LEP (74% to 83%)
White (86% to 91%)

Availability of Edline Content for 2010-11 School Year

Mon, 9 Aug 2010 13:30:00 EST

As we transition to the new school year, course-specific Edline web pages for elementary and middle schools will not be fully updated and available to access until Sept. 3. Updated high school course web pages will be available Sept. 3 to Edline subscribers. Parents and students without an Edline account will not be able to view course-specific web pages until Sept. 9.

Until the course-specific web pages are available, teachers will ensure that students have timely access to all information that would have been posted on the web pages. As always, the school's main pages will be available and updated throughout the summer and school year.

If you have questions, please contact your child's teacher.

Length of School Day

Tue, 25 May 2010 13:30:00 EST

2010-11 School Calendar

Mon, 3 May 2010 12:30:00 EST

School Calendar Make-Up Day

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 11:45:00 EST

At this time, the York County School Division does not plan to schedule a make-up day for the school day missed on March 3 due to inclement weather. If division schools do not miss another school day this school year, we will meet state requirements regarding instructional hours.

Change to School-Year Calendar

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST

Monday, Feb. 15, 2010, will now be a regular school day for all YCSD students. This change to the school-year calendar is needed to make up one of the instructional days cancelled due to inclement weather.

At this time, no other make-up days are being added to the school calendar.

2nd Semester Block Schedules

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST

Final Grades to be Rounded Beginning with Second Quarter

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 9:00:00 EST

Beginning January 5th, final grades within .5 of the next higher letter grade will be rounded up on interim reports and report cards.

This change affects all York County School Division students in grades 3-12. Final grades for the first quarter of the 2009-10 school year will not be rounded retroactively. Semester grades will not be adversely affected by the implementation of rounding beginning with the second quarter because first and second quarter numerical grades are averaged to determine a student's final semester grade and only the semester and final grades are entered on transcripts and forwarded to colleges.

If you have any questions regarding this new policy, please contact your child's teacher or the guidance office.

FAQs

Why is this change being made? Since all teachers in grades 3-12 now use an online grade book, grades are averaged electronically, thus creating grades with decimal points. No division-wide rounding procedure was in place, and it is important that grades are calculated in the same manner regardless of which YCSD school a student attends.

Why is rounding up being implemented after school has started? Principals and teachers agreed that implementation should be sooner rather than later. Since rounding up second quarter grades would have no adverse affect on first quarter grades and on semester averages, it was determined that the procedure could be implemented second quarter.

Will my child's previous grades be rounded up? No, there will be no retroactive rounding of previous grades.

Revisions to the Elementary SOL Testing Calendar

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

The division has made some changes to the spring SOL testing dates. To ensure that tests are returned by the state’s deadline, SOL testing will begin on May 26 with the History 3 and History 4 exams. Students absent on May 26 may make-up the test on May 27. All other elementary SOL testing will be after Memorial Day and will run through June 9.

Elementary students are required to take the following SOL tests:

Grade 3: English, Part 1 & 2; Math; History; Science
Grade 4: English, Math, History
Grade 5: English, Math, Science

YCSD H1N1 Influenza Clinics CANCELLED

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:30:00 EST

The after-school H1N1 Influenza clinics have been cancelled and will be rescheduled at a later date.

Due to H1N1 influenza vaccine shortages, the Virginia Department of Health Peninsula District has postponed all after-school and in-school vaccination clinics.

Once the clinics have been rescheduled, the new dates will be publicized to the YCSD community.

If you have any questions about the vaccination clinics, please call the health department at 594-7305.

Swine Flu Information - Update

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST

Update, April 30, 2009: Responding to a high public interest in swine flu, the state’s health department will open a call center today for Virginians to telephone with questions about the new virus. The number – 1-877-ASK-VDH3 – will be staffed from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. April 30 & May 1. Some questions will be answered immediately by health department staff, and others will be recorded to be answered in return calls.

Swine Flu Information

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST

Health officials are concerned about a flu virus of swine origin that has spread in countries around the world.

The York County School Division has a detailed flu pandemic plan in place that was reviewed and revised earlier this school year. Division staff members are in close contact with the Virginia Department of Education, which is receiving regular updates from the Virginia Department of Health, and will follow their guidance about any actions that should be taken by the school division.

Currently, we are being advised that the best prevention measure is hand-washing, and we will continue to emphasize this in our schools. Hand-washing is a big part of our year-round efforts to prevent the spread of illnesses in our schools.

There are many web sites where you can find regularly updated information about the flu and several links are provided below. We will post additional information on this web site as needed.

Resources:

Centers for Disease Control: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/
Virginia Department of Health (for Virginia-specific information): http://www.vdh.state.va.us/
U.S. Government Pandemic Flu Website: http://www.pandemicflu.gov/
World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/en/