Virginia Board of Education receives feedback on school performance and support framework

The Virginia Board of Education has concluded a series of statewide listening sessions on a proposed framework for school performance and support, during which attendees expressed strong support for several key focal points.

The sessions provided an opportunity for more than 800 parents, educators, and community members to comment on the development of the standards.

The key takeaways from the sessions include strong support for the mastery index, a desire to use narrative, descriptive categories for school performance and identification, and a focus on growth and readiness for elementary, middle, and high school. The feedback gathered from these sessions (eight in person and seven virtual) will be used by the board to inform the development of a final framework that will be implemented next year.

The new framework aims to create greater transparency and accountability in the school performance system and to support the growth and success of students.

“The response and feedback we have received from the public throughout the Commonwealth clearly demonstrates the importance of this work,” said Board of Education Member Dr. Amber Northern. “I am encouraged by the level of participation and grateful for the insightful comments and meaningful discussions we’ve received as we continue to shape Virginia’s school performance and support framework.”

The mastery index, a weighted calculation based on the achievement level attained by students, received widespread support from participants, according to state officials. Feedback indicated a desire to provide weighting for every performance level. Stakeholders shared that performance levels should not cause advanced performance to mask the basic or below basic performance, officials said.

Stakeholders and the board seem aligned on the desire not to use an A-F scale to categorize schools. Rather, feedback suggested a strong preference for using narrative, descriptive categories, such as “exemplar, meeting, developing, emerging,” as opposed to a numeric approach for describing the overall performance of a school. The board will continue to discuss the framework, officials said.

For details about the process, click here.

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