Annandale Area Schools Achieve AYP

North Springfield Elementary School, which teaches both preschool and K-5 students, is one of several schools in Fairfax County to achieve the benchmark of making Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP. AYP is part of the No Child Left Behind Act.

"We're thrilled we made AYP. It's a lot of hard work on the part of the teachers and students and parents and it's a collaborative effort," said Principal Alice Alexander.

According to the Virginia Department of Education, AYP "requires states to set annual measurable objectives of proficiency in reading and mathematics, participation in testing, and graduation and attendance." There are a total of 30 benchmarks that schools have to reach to achieve AYP, but in Virginia, AYP is determined by the Standards of Learning exams.

The Virginia Department of Education website further explains that in order for a school to achieve AYP, over "81 percent of students overall and students in all subgroups must have demonstrated proficiency in reading, and more than 79 percent of students overall and in all subgroups must have demonstrated proficiency in mathematics."

Student achievement from the previous school year helps determine the AYP ratings for the following year. The end goal of AYP is for all schools to achieve 100 percent proficiency for all students in reading and math by 2014.

Achieving AYP is one of the many goals the school that North Springfield faculty and staff focus on throughout the year, but while it's a huge achievement for the school, Alexander stresses that there is more work to be done.

"We want to address making AYP, and passing our scores, but we also want to address the needs of your students who do well. We have to provide enrichment for them," said Alexander. "[AYP is] a very important thing…it's wonderful, but it's only a part of who we are. We're educating the whole child and we want that child to be a productive member of society."

Last year's goals included working to improve vocabulary at North Springfield, particularly in science. The success of that program has encouraged Alexander and her staff to aim for improving their writing vocabulary this year.  While the school is working toward becoming a professional learning community to meet the needs of the adults on the staff, providing good instruction to students is still a top priority.

"We really work on having our students be good citizens of the world," said Alexander. This past year, North Springfield students collected quarters to purchase turkeys for families. The students also held food drives and collected clothes for children in need of them. Alexander says that though North Springfield is a working class school, the children give what they can.

"It might be a quarter or it might be a pair of mittens, but the drives have helped us reach out to others. We want them to have essential life skills and live in the community and help each other out," said Alexander.

Every year, the Virginia Department of Education releases AYP reports. According to the VDOE 2010-2011 AYP Ratings report, of the 190 schools in Fairfax County, 137 made AYP. Among those schools, in addition to North Springfield, are Annandale Terrace Elementary School, Braddock Elementary School, Camelot Elementary School, Canterbury Woods Elementary School, Columbia Elementary School, Kings Glen Elementary School, Ravensworth Elementary School, Wakefield Forest Elementary School, and Thomas Jefferson High for Science and Technology.