Four out of five Charlotte County Public Schools achieved full state accreditation based on results from last year’s Standards of Learning (SOL) tests.

According to data released on Tuesday, Oct. 27 from the Virginia Department of Education, Bacon District Elementary was the only school in the division that way labeled as partially accredited based on the school’s pass rates.

According to the department of education, all students must meet certain federal Annual Measurable Objectives (AMOs) in reading and mathematics. Federal accountability also includes three proficiency gap groups along with other subgroups.

The Department of Education said “schools have three ways to meet the AMOs: test results from the most recently completed school year, test results based on a three-year average or by reducing the failure rate by 10 percent.” In addition, the Department of Education said “high schools must also meet the federal graduation indicator for all groups. ‘Proficiency gaps’ report the differences in performance of traditionally underperforming student subgroups as compared with established AMOs.”

Bacon District Elementary is considered a Title 1 Focus school under federal accountability.

“I continue to be concerned for the disadvantage that a small school like Bacon has in being able to perform well statistically in state and federal reporting because of the small number of students enrolled in Bacon District Elementary,” said Superintendent of Charlotte County Public Schools Nancy Leonard.

“It is a reality that it is very difficult for small schools to become fully accredited because it only takes a few failing scores to bring pass rates down dramatically for the entire school.”

Proficiency gap groups included: all students, Gap Group one, students with disabilities, English language learners and economically disadvantaged students (unduplicated); Gap Group two, Black students and Gap Group three, Hispanic students.

Gap Group three was not evaluated at any level due to too few students.

In the all students category, Bacon District Elementary did not meet the AMO in reading, however the AMO in math was met by reducing the failure rate by at least 10 percent.

Gap Group one (students with disabilities) and two (black students) did not meet the AMOs in reading. Math was met by Gap Group two with a reduction in the failure rate.

Eureka Elementary, Phenix Elementary, Central Middle School and Randolph-Henry High School each received full state accreditation for the current school year. In addition, each of the schools met the AMO targets in all gap groups for reading and math based on current year results.

“The complete story behind the AMOs is that there are 53 total AMOs,” Leonard said. “We missed a perfect AMO report by one category out of 53 in students with disabilities in reading. We out-performed every other school division in Region 8. I am very proud of our performance,” she said.