Virginia’s school accreditation system is changing. The 2024-25 school year was the first to be evaluated under a new system emphasizing readiness for the so-called 3Es: enrollment, employment, and enlistment. In order to measure how prepared Virginia’s students are to attend college, find full-time work, or join the military, the framework establishes an array of new benchmarks for student achievement.
The recently released first report under the new system places WAHS and its feeder schools, and ACPS as a whole, at the top of many regional rankings. Albemarle County leads Region 5 in schools ranked “distinguished,” with eight out of the region’s 33 under ACPS’s purview. Henley is the excellence leader for middle schools, and Brownsville, Virginia L. Murray, and Ivy elementary schools the top three in their level. WAHS, at 107 points, is the lead scorer in overall high school excellence, followed by Louisa with 99.5. Western also leads the enrollment and general 3E readiness categories, though no numerical subscores are given.
According to a summary released by the VDOE alongside the report, the new 3E Readiness Framework measures career readiness through students’ completion of benchmarks in the titular categories. Students earn points towards enrollment readiness by passing college-level exams (such as AP, IB, Cambridge or CLEP) or by earning high grades in dual enrollment classes. Employment readiness is marked by completion of a sequence of CTE classes, and full points are awarded to students who earn credentials in state-defined “high-demand” fields, complete work-based learning experiences, or both. Finally, enlistment readiness scores are calculated based on performance on the AFQT/ASVAB, an exam given to enlistees to determine their qualifications for a military career.
It hasn’t always been this way. “The old system was about SOLs, chronic absenteeism, and achievement gaps,” said principal Jennifer Sublette. “Most accreditation was tied to the math SOL, biology, social studies verification through the IDMs, and the tenth- and eleventh-grade reading and writing SOLs.”
Data was also collected on achievement gaps between membership groups: “if you had gaps, you had to show each year those gaps were closing,” according to Sublette. The new metrics instead aim to capture more academic nuance by deemphasizing SOL performance and incentivizing CTE courses. “It’s looking at students’ plans for after high school,” Sublette said, “and how we set them up for that.”
“The biggest change for us is the focus on career readiness,” Sublette said. Students in CTE classes, especially, will notice the shift. Those courses will refocus on a project-heavy curriculum designed to prepare them for real-world applications of their learning in an industry setting. According to Sublette, students will graduate with “certifications and demonstrated skillsets they can put into the workforce.”
Employment isn’t the only E that will see the change, either. The collected data now also account not only for students who pass SOL exams but also those who score in the Advanced Pass range or who take honors, AP, or dual enrollment courses.
However, some measures from the previous framework have been dropped as well. “There is less focus on membership groups and closing achievement gaps,” Sublette said. She’s concerned that the new standards fail to “drill down” into data trends tied to various subpopulations of students at WAHS. Despite losing a key way to quantify the results, though, school administration will continue the pursuit of educational equity at WAHS. “We worked really hard to close those gaps,” Sublette said, “and because we know how important that work is, we will continue.”
The new framework isn’t the first shift in the accreditation sphere since Sublette’s tenure began. She was hired as principal during a time when the school was on academic warning from the state for its failure to meet the then-current system of standards. “Success is the easiest way to keep our autonomy,” Sublette said. However, her goal is even simpler than keeping the school off probation. “It’s our job to use this [framework] to create opportunities for kids,” she said. “This new system is a good reminder of what our goals are.”
