Roanoke City Public Schools (RCPS) is celebrating continued academic and student success growth reflected in Virginia’s newly released School Quality Profiles on Wednesday, October 7, which include updated School Performance and Support Framework (SPSF) accountability ratings, accreditation, chronic absenteeism data, and graduation rates.
The results show meaningful progress across the division, including substantial reductions in chronic absenteeism, increases in graduation rates, improvement in school performance scores, and continued full accreditation for every school in the division. Multiple RCPS schools also earned recognition for top performance and top growth in the Virginia Department of Education’s Region 6 across multiple SPSF indicators.
“While Virginia’s accountability system continues to evolve, the underlying data tells a clear story: more RCPS students are attending school regularly, more students are graduating, and more schools are improving,” said Superintendent Verletta White. “When we look beyond labels and examine the actual data, we see evidence that our investments in literacy, mathematics, student support services, and school improvement efforts are making a meaningful difference for our students.”
Among the most encouraging outcomes is RCPS’ continued success in improving student attendance.
Since the 2022-2023 school year, division-wide chronic absenteeism has declined from 26.96% to 18.89%, representing an overall 30% reduction. RCPS’ 4.49-percentage point decline this year outpaced statewide improvements, which averaged approximately 2 to 3 percentage points.
Several schools demonstrated particularly strong attendance gains over the past three years. Both Lincoln Terrace Elementary School and James Breckinridge Middle School now have chronic absenteeism rates below 10%, the lowest category possible. The number of schools with chronic absenteeism rates above 20% decreased from 10 to six in just one year.
Graduation outcomes also improved. RCPS’ year-over-year on-time graduation rate increased from 84.3% to 85.77%. Particularly notable was the progress among English Learners, whose graduation rate increased from 57.03% to 70.83%.
These gains are due to educators’ commitment to knowing every student by name, by need, and by strength, such as the use of student support specialists, enhanced intervention systems, and regular student cohort monitoring designed to identify and address barriers before students fall behind.
The SPSF, now in its second year of implementation, measures school performance across multiple indicators, including academic achievement, academic growth, graduation rates, chronic absenteeism, and readiness measures.
This year’s results show that 19 RCPS schools improved their overall SPSF scores compared with last year, while four schools improved their overall SPSF performance category.
Additionally, no RCPS scored below 70 points, and 12 schools earned scores of
RCPS recognizes that challenges remain and that achievement gaps persist for some student populations. At the same time, the latest results demonstrate meaningful progress and that strategic investments are producing positive outcomes for students.
“The most important comparison is not between RCPS and other school divisions but between where we were last year and where we are this year,” Dr. White said. “When we make that comparison, we see that our schools are improving, and our students are growing. Our goal is to ensure every student, in every school, has access to the support and opportunities they need to succeed. This data shows we are moving in the right direction.”
