Our Mission

Working together as a team, we will end the predictive value of race, class, gender, and special capacities for our children’s success through high quality teaching and learning for all. We seek to build relationships with families and communities to ensure that every student succeeds. We will know every student.

Our Mission

Social Studies Inquiries & Locally Awarded Verified Credit (LAVC) Process

In all K-12 Social Studies courses, we believe in increasing rigor and relevance by teaching through inquiry that invites students to consider compelling questions and develop informed, evidence-based claims.

In all core ACPS K-12 Social Studies courses, all students will participate in at least three inquiry-based units. Each unit ends with a performance assessment that asks students to answer the unit’s compelling question and justify their response with evidence from a series of primary and secondary sources.

In order to receive verified credit for high school Social Studies classes, students typically must pass the course and a corresponding SOL assessment. In Social Studies courses, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) has given school divisions the option of implementing a series of inquiry-based units with corresponding performance tasks alongside regular classroom assessments. This new verified credit process applies to World Geography (grade 9), World History to 1500 (grade 9), World History 1500-Present (grade 10), and Virginia & United States History (grade 11). Students must verify at least one of these courses for graduation requirements.

The rubrics for each grade level are linked here.

In grades 6-12, students' score on the Core Expectations part of the rubric will appear in PowerSchool as a traditional grade. The conversion chart below shows how a 4, 3, 2, 1, not observed, and 0 (missing) will appear in the PowerSchool gradebook as a traditional grade:

Not attempted = MISSING (will convert to a 50%)
Not observed = 60%
1 = 65%
2 = 75%
3 = 85%
4 = 100%