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Lunenburg Listed as Top Up-and-Coming School District in Virginia

   Written by on January 8, 2016 at 10:30 am

By Brian Nowlin, Staff Writer

LUNENBURG – Lunenburg County Public Schools Superintendent Charles Berkley has expressed his desire to see the local school system continue to move in the right direction. With recent increases in test scores and a focused effort on reading, LCPS officials have been pleased with the results.

In addition to that, the partnership between the community and the schools, along with the increase in events and accolades throughout the four schools, has brought many positives to the county.

LCPS officials got even more impressive news recently as Lunenburg County was named as the top up and coming school division in Virginia.

In an article on StartClass.com, author Nick Selbe wrote about the upcoming overhaul to the No Child Left Behind Act and how a focus on state and local involvement could be forthcoming.

StartClass.com is an education research website that provides students, parents, and educators with education options and research. The site examined the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education to identify the primary “up-and-coming” public school district in each state.

The articles states, “The data is from the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years. To determine the top up-and-coming school district in every state, we focused on two factors: the change in percentile rank in proficiency rates on statewide math and reading tests, and the change in percentile rank in high school graduation rates.

We then calculated the average percentile rank improvement between the two metrics. We chose the district with the greatest increase as the biggest up-and-comer in the state.

Three states — Idaho, Kentucky and Oklahoma — are not included in this list because they were not required to report their graduation rates for the 2011-2012 school year. In addition, Hawaii was not included because it has just one school district. We also did not include school districts with fewer than 100 students participating in the state math and reading assessment.

For LCPS the average percentile change was 32.3%. The schools saw a 2011-2012 proficiency percentile that ranked 18th
and the 2012-2013 proficiency percentile ranked 22nd. The 2011-2012 graduation rate percentile was 11th
and the 2012-2013 graduation rate percentile was 71st.

Mr. Berkley noted that he was pleased to see Lunenburg on this list and it offered affirmation of the work by the teachers and students as well as motivation to continue this trend.

Mr. Berkley stated, “The assessment results are the product of hard work by students and teachers throughout our school division who are under more rigorous standards than in past years. While we are pleased with the overall growth in academic performance, we know that some areas in our school division that  are still struggling. The lower dropout rate and higher graduation rates prove to encourage students to stay focused on attendance and completing their education by following multiple pathways to college and career opportunities. We are implementing initiatives and working to help students as we continue to move forward that will better prepare them for post-secondary education and the workforce of the 21st century. These scores demonstrate that our students will respond to academic challenges and our teachers are becoming better trained to help students achieve higher performance as we implement more rigor in the classroom. I feel we on the road to success and accomplishing the goals set for our students in Lunenburg County.”

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