Eight of Isle of Wight County’s nine public schools and two of Surry County’s would be labeled “on track” under Virginia’s new school ranking system.

A third in Surry County would be deemed “distinguished” per preliminary rankings the Virginia Department of Education released recently to provide school divisions with a preview of how their schools would perform under the new system based on current data.

In March, Virginia’s Board of Education voted to change its accreditation system, contending the current methodology in place since 2018 lacks transparency given the number of schools reaccredited despite having yet to return to their pre-pandemic SOL pass rates. The new system, which is called “school performance” or “accountability” rather than accreditation, will implement a point-based scoring system next school year weighted more heavily on the state Standards of Learning tests.

The state reaccredited all nine schools in Isle of Wight and all three in Surry for the 2024-25 school year based on the 2018 methodology, which is in its last year of use. The new system will take effect at the start of the 2025-26 school year based on this year’s data.

Content mastery as measured by the SOLs counts for 65% of a school’s ranking at the elementary level, 60% at the middle school level and 50% at the high school level. A new mastery index weights a “pass advanced” range of SOL scores at 1.25 points, a “pass proficient” range at 1 point, and failures at 0.25 to 0.75 points depending on how close they are to the minimum proficiency threshold.

The new system also uses weighted scores of up to 1.25 points to measure year-over-year improvement or growth among non-passing students and “readiness,” which includes chronic absenteeism or the percentage of students absent for 10% or more of the school year. Readiness accounts for 10% of a school’s score at the elementary level, 20% at the middle school level and 35% at the high school level, with a high school’s graduation rate counting for its remaining 15%.

Schools that earn a cumulative 90 points or more across all applicable categories are rated as “distinguished.” Those with 80 to 89 points are labeled “on track.” Those with 65 to 79 points are deemed “off track” and those below 65 are labeled as needing “intensive support.”

Surry County High School, based on data through June 30, would be rated as “distinguished” with a cumulative 91.5 points.

According to Isle of Wight Deputy Superintendent Susan Goetz, Smithfield High School and Windsor High School would also have ranked as distinguished based on methodology from October that had changed by November. The October methodology had included a higher credit for Isle of Wight County Schools’ in-house career and technical education programs.

“Our schools are still in really good shape,” said IWCS Superintendent Theo Cramer, who called the new methodology “an evolving process.”

Nineteen schools – one in Accomack County, one in Arlington, two in Fairfax County, three in Chesterfield County, one in Danville, one in Norfolk, five in Petersburg and five in Richmond – would be rated as needing intensive support per the state’s preliminary data. Another 548 would score in the “off track” category.

Isle of Wight’s one outlier, Carrollton Elementary, will likely receive an “insufficient data” label due to issues with applying the new methodology to preschool through third-grade schools like Carrollton, according to Colleen Loud, Isle of Wight’s director of accountability and assessment.

Despite the “insufficient data” label, Carrollton will still have numerical data, Loud said. Carrollton’s 69% pass rate on the reading SOL and 77% pass rate on the math SOL in 2023-24 would translate to 49.77 points out of a possible 65 under the new system, according to data Loud shared at the Isle of Wight School Board’s Nov. 14 meeting. Carrollton’s 84 out of 542 students, or 15.5%, deemed chronically absent during the 2023-24 school year would translate to 8.45 out of a possible 10 points.

Hardy, which the state’s preliminary data ranks at 85 points, also does not include science test results in its overall score, as Hardy presently houses preschool through fourth grade. Surry Elementary is also a preschool through fourth-grade school and would have an 83.8 overall score based on last school year’s data.

The mastery index at the elementary level places a 10% weight on a school’s science SOL test, which is only given to students in grades 5 and 8-12. Carrollton is one of seven preschool through third-grade elementary schools in the state that see their SOL pass rates determined solely by one grade level, as SOL testing doesn’t start until third grade. This will also eliminate Carrollton’s entire growth category, Loud said.

Growth accounts for 25% of a school’s score at the elementary level and 20% at the middle school level.

Under the 2018 accreditation system, students who scored below the minimum 400 passing threshold on the 0-600 SOL grading scale would count toward a school’s combined pass rate for accreditation purposes if they showed growth by moving from one of four non-passing performance levels to another.

The 2025-26 methodology will instead measure an individual student’s growth against the expected growth of his or her peers statewide, according to Loud. A student who makes significantly more growth than his or her statewide peers would earn his or her school 1.25 points while a student who shows less growth than the statewide average would be weighted at 0.5 points.

At the high school level, the 35% readiness weight breaks down into 25% applied to the state’s “three E” framework, or “enrollment, employment or enlistment,” 5% applied to its six-year graduation rate and another 5% applied to chronic absenteeism. Students who earn an associate’s degree concurrently with their high school diploma would count for 1.25 points toward the enrollment framework while students who complete a state-approved industry credential in a high-demand field or score 65 or higher on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, test, would each count for 1 point.