Prince William County Doubles Number Of Schools Earning State's Highest Rating

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VA – Almost half of Prince William County’s public schools earned the state’s top rating in a newly released assessment, while four of the county’s 95 public schools were found to need intervention.

The county more than doubled the number of schools earning a Distinguished rating, the assessment’s top ranking, and the number of schools receiving the lowest rating dropped by one.

The ratings are part of Virginia’s School Performance and Support Framework, which measures academic achievement, growth and other indicators while also incorporating federal accountability requirements.

The SPSF assesses schools on students' mastery of skills, year-to-year growth, readiness for advancement, and, if applicable, graduation, and assigns point values for performance. The state's system gives a Distinguished rating to schools that score 90 points or above. Schools designated as Meeting Expectations earn 80 to 89 points and the threshold for Approaching Expectations starts at 65 points.

Forty-five schools in Prince William County were assessed as Distinguished, with another 25 rated as Meeting Expectations, according to SPSF data released on Wednesday.

Twenty-one schools were rated Approaching Expectations and four were rated Needs Intensive Support, the lowest rating. However, schools can be rated a level lower than their actual numerical scores would indicate if an individual group of students in the school, like students from low-income backgrounds or students with disabilities, is struggling.

Every PWCS school rated as Approaching Expectations or Needs Intensive Support actually earned high enough numerical scores to rank one category up. However, across the district, students with disabilities and English language learners are performing well below state targets.

Two Prince William County schools were among the top 20 most improved in its region, which includes other large districts like Loudoun, Fairfax and Arlington public schools.

The four schools that received the lowest rating were West Gate Elementary in Manassas, Unity Braxton Middle School in Manassas, Unity Reed High School in Manassas and Freedom High School in Woodbridge.

The Mary Porter Traditional School received the highest score in the county.

See Prince William Public Schools’ 2025 results here.

The county’s detailed 2026 results can be found here.