Third grade reading skills, considered critical to academic success, continue to challenge Williamsburg-James City County schools. But school officials are fighting back with a series of steps that proved successful in neighboring York County.
W-JCC third graders have yet to return to their 2018 pass rates in the Standards of Learning reading tests, and even that high point falls below the 85% pass rate set as a goal by the school board.
Third grade pass rates plateaued at 73 % in 2018, dropped to 66% in 2021 as schools reopened from Covid and climbed to 71% the following year. But they fell back to 67% in the tests conducted last school year.
Minority and low-income students are doing worse, and kids from Williamsburg under-perform their county peers by double digits, according to a progress report from the school administration in October.
York County school scores have consi…