Preliminary data shows most Warren County schools accredited with conditions

Six of nine Warren County Public Schools (WCPS) are accredited with conditions for school year 2021-2022, and the other three schools are accredited based on preliminary data provided by Central Office staff during the Warren County School Board’s Wednesday, July 6 regular meeting.

Accredited schools in Warren County for the last school year are A.S. Rhodes Elementary School (ASR); Hilda J. Barbour Elementary School (HJB); and Ressie Jeffries Elementary School (RJ).
Schools accredited with conditions are E. Wilson Morrison Elementary School (EWM); Leslie Fox Keyser Elementary School (LFK); Skyline Middle School (SMS); Warren County Middle School (WCMS); Skyline High School (SHS); and Warren County High School (WCHS).

Accreditation ratings, which shine a light on school progress and needs, are how Virginia and other states measure performance on multiple school quality indicators and encourage continuous improvement for all schools.

Denise Walton, WCPS testing coordinator, provided the School Board with the Accreditation and Standards of Learning (SOL) Report, which included an overview of accreditation requirements and SOL school pass rates for school year 2021-2022.

Walton described the indicators of accreditation, which for elementary and middle schools are: Academic Achievement in Mathematics, English, and Science; Achievement Gap in Mathematics and English; and Chronic Absenteeism. High School indicators include those items, as well as: the Graduation Completion Index; the Dropout Rate; and the College, Career, and Civic Readiness Index.

Walton explained that each indicator is assigned a performance level (there are three levels) and then the performance levels determine accreditation ratings. Combined they are:
• Level One (green) earns an accredited rating meaning that a school demonstrates acceptable performance, performance above the state’s benchmark, or adequate improvement from Level Two.
• Level Two (yellow) earns an accredited with conditions rating, which is near the state standard or sufficient improvement from Level Three.
• Level Three (red) means accreditation denied because a school demonstrates performance below the benchmarks for Level One and Level Two OR a school has stayed at Level Two or Level Three through four consecutive years.

Walton also highlighted some of the indicators, saying, for example, that the Chronic Absenteeism indicator — which is the percentage of students who miss more than 10 percent of the school year — has been waived by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) for accreditation year 2022-2023 based on data from the 2021-2022 school year. However, it will still show up on school profiles, Walton said.

Additionally, data for the Achievement Gap indicator, which is reported by student subgroups — Asian students, Black students, Hispanic students, White students, Economically Disadvantaged students, English Learners, and Students with Disabilities (excluding 504 students) — now includes a new subgroup known as Multiple Races. Together, the subgroups count as one indicator each for math and English said Walton.

To determine a school’s performance level, data from the best of the current level of performance or the cumulative three-year rate is used, Walton explained, but due to the pandemic, the three-year rate calculation for all indicators will use data from the 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2021-2022 school years. No data from school years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 will be used in the three-year rate calculations, she said.

In the data presented on Wednesday, Walton said that WCPS is actually comparing school year 2021-2022 data to that from school year 2018-2019. “It’s like the two years from the pandemic did not exist so we’ll be going back to show improvement from 2018-19,” she said.

Once all of the performance levels have been determined, then the accreditation rating can be determined, said Walton, noting that accredited schools are those having all school-quality indicators at either Level One or Level Two; schools that are accredited with conditions are those with one or more school-quality indicators at Level Two; and an accreditation denied rating means a school failed to adopt or fully implement required corrective actions to address Level Three school-quality indicators.

SOL results
Walton also released preliminary SOL Results for 2021-2022. For math, all schools in Warren County had combined rates exceeding the 70-percent benchmark. The top three highest rates were WCHS (94.53 percent); ASR (92.62 percent); and HJB (90.13 percent).

For English, which includes reading and writing, eight schools in WCPS rated Level One, with the highest combined rates being ASR (92.74 percent); RJ (88.19 percent); and HJB (87.78 percent). SMS was in Level Two with a combined rate of 69.95 percent, which fell just below the 75-percent English benchmark. WCMS’s combined rate of 72.96 percent also fell below the benchmark, but its three-year cumulative rate is a Level One, putting WCMS in Level One for school year 2021-2022, Walton said.

Science was a tough subject across the school district last year with three Warren County schools rated Level Three in science, which has a 70-percent benchmark: SMS (44.90 percent); EWM (45.45 percent); and LFK (60.24 percent). HJB had a pass rate of 70 percent. The other schools are also in Level One based on cumulative three-year rate, though their pass rates for school year 2021-2022 all fell below the 70-percent benchmark.

Based on all of this information, Walton said that in WCPS, three elementary schools are accredited, while the remaining schools are accredited with conditions.

But she pointed out that more data is forthcoming, and the ratings could change — except for EWM, LFK, and SMS, which will remain accredited with conditions because of science.

For instance, Walton said that English Learner growth has not been calculated, except for English only, nor has substitute test information been included from WorkKeys tests.

Additionally, scores have not yet been released from the state alternative assessments for students with severe cognitive disabilities

Walton said that WCMS, SHS, and WCMS may move to accredited once all the data is completed. VDOE will release ratings on September 22, she added.

Currently, no other information is available on the other indicators besides SOLs, Walton said.

Plan to boost science ratings
“We have a plan in place to address science,” Walton told the School Board members on Wednesday.

The WCPS Science Plan of Action for School Year 2022-2023 includes developing Science Learning Collaboratives for both elementary and middle school teachers that are supported by professional development from VDOE; led by a WCPS teacher leader with support from the Central Office; focused on cross-curricular instruction in the 4th and 5th grades, and uses a specific science model in middle school, said Walton.

Additionally, work has started on creating a comprehensive planning guide for 5th-grade science with plans also underway for 4th-grade science, she said. Middle schoolers will use STEMscopes, which provides the digital science curriculum and hands-on exploratory learning kits, and teachers will be trained in early August on best practices for implementing the resources in their science classrooms, added Walton.

Meetings are also underway with WCPS high school biology teachers and instructional resource teachers to discuss curriculum alignment and sharing instructional strategies and resources.

WCPS Superintendent Christopher Ballenger told School Board Chair Kristen Pence, Vice-Chair Ralph Rinaldi, and members Antoinette Funk, Andrea Lo, and Melanie Salins that no decisions have been made yet on boosting science instruction in 4th grade, which currently focuses on the history SOL.

Click here to watch the July 6, 2022, WCSB Meeting.