City: Richmond, VA

Category: Education

Telephone: (804) 748-1405

Description: Serving more than 58,000 students in 64 schools, Chesterfield County is the largest school division in the Richmond region and among the 100 largest in the country. CCPS is the largest division in Virginia to have every school fully accredited in 2008 and 2009. With 78 National Board–certified teachers and almost 2,000 teachers with master’s degrees, the school system hires and develops talented educators, and it shows. The Milken Family Foundation has bestowed National Educator Awards, accompanied by $25,000, on three county teachers. Four schools—James River High, Clover Hill Elementary, Grange Hall Elementary, and Robious Elementary—are national Blue Ribbon Schools. Twelve schools earned the 2010 Governor’s Award of Educational Excellence. Students entering high school in Chesterfield County can apply to programs as diverse as Spanish immersion, pre-engineering, health sciences, the arts, and International Baccalaureate programs, to name just a few. Of the more than 4,000 high school graduates in the class of 2009, more than half earned advanced diplomas, and 83 percent planned to continue their education. In 2009 more than 3,000 students took more than 5,410 Advanced Placement exams.