School Performance & Support Framework Overview
A System Built for Virginia by Virginians
The School Performance and Support Framework was developed with the input of Virginians throughout the Commonwealth to create high expectations for every student in Virginia. Stakeholder feedback in the Framework has been critical.
Throughout its development, teachers, parents, students, and education leaders were engaged and had many opportunities to help inform the Virginia Board of Education’s process to build a transparent and clear system. Together, following nearly a year of public hearings held across the state, with ten engagements last winter and 20 this spring gathering more than 1,000 participants, as well as multiple rounds of public review and public comment periods, we have designed the system Virginians have asked for.
With this instrumental feedback, we have shaped the components of the Framework, allowing all stakeholders to access actionable information on how students are mastering grade level expectations, how groups of learners are growing towards those expectations, how overall schools are performing, and what supports and resources schools need to ensure student success. Together, Virginia is leading the way to provide transparent, actionable data, and the supports necessary to improve student and school performance throughout the state.
High Expectations for Every Student and Every School
The purpose of accountability is to build trust between schools, parents, and students through transparent, concrete, and easy-to-understand reporting. Providing necessary supports and working alongside schools in need of help are key elements of the Framework. Student academic growth and proficiency are both vital measures, but the system prioritizes getting every student to proficiency/mastery. Proficiency definitions are set by benchmarking against the demands of Virginia employers and higher education, as well as against other states who have the most rigorous definitions of proficiency in the nation.
Components of the Framework
The Framework uses three areas of focus for elementary, middle, and high school. Each component is weighted differently to meet the focus of the school.
- Mastery incorporates all student Standards of Learning test results. It awards additional credit for students who reach advanced levels and partial credit for students who do not yet meet grade-level standards.
- Growth uses a student’s past performance on Virginia SOL tests to measure how they are expected to learn from the start of the school year to the end. The metric then compares expected learning to actual learning at the end of the year.
- Readiness considers measures such as chronic absenteeism and the percentage of students demonstrating they are post secondary readiness when they graduate from high school through the 3E Framework (Enrollment, Employment, and Enlistment). It also includes the percentage of students graduating on time.
Below is an overview of the weighting and the differences between the school levels.
Overall School Performance
VDOE uses factors to determine what performance category a school falls under. The Framework does not categorize any school as failing. These factors will be weighted and combined to place each school in one of four categories:
|
Distinguished |
On Track |
Off Track |
Needs Intensive Support |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Schools are exceeding the state’s expectation for growth, achievement, and readiness.
Schools serve as models of best practices from which others learn.
Schools have access to general state supports, such as support from regional instructional consultants and grants. |
Schools are meeting the state’s expectation for growth, achievement, and readiness.
Schools have access to general state supports and may also receive support for student groups. |
Schools are not meeting the state’s expectation for growth, achievement, and readiness.
Schools have access to additional state supports and may also receive support for student groups. |
Schools are significantly not meeting the state’s expectation for growth, achievement, and readiness.
Schools may receive intensive support from the state or supports for student groups. |
Using all available 2023-24 data, the Department modeled Virginia school performance and determined where schools would be categorized if the Framework were used this past year. As a note, schools in TSIE and ATSI were moved according to federal requirements. This information has been provided to all school divisions to support their transition from the past model to the new School Performance and Support Framework. Because the model has not been fully implemented, these are preliminary and some data sets are not available.
|
Category |
Elementary Schools Total |
Elementary Schools Percent |
Middle Schools Total |
Middle Schools Percent |
High Schools Total |
High Schools Percent |
Unique School Configurations Total |
Unique School Configurations Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Distinguished |
177 |
23 |
7% |
62 |
22% |
11 |
19% |
|
|
On Track |
569 |
51% |
155 |
49% |
127 |
45% |
32 |
55% |
|
Off Track |
248 |
22% |
60 |
19% |
89 |
31% |
12 |
21% |
|
Needs Intensive Support |
117 |
11% |
81 |
25% |
7 |
2% |
3 |
5% |
|
Total |
1111 |
|
319 |
|
285 |
|
58 |
|
*2023-24 school year federal identification was used for this chart. The Board of Education’s previous models did not include these designation rules, nor include 3E Readiness high school data.
**CSI schools are federally identified for having low academic performance, or low graduation rates compared to other schools. They can also be identified for not exiting ATSI status. TSI schools are identified for having one or more student groups with low academic performance. ATSI schools are identified for having one or more student groups consistently lower than CSI schools. 8VAC20-132-270. F states that any school identified for TSI or ATSI shall have their overall performance category lowered by one level.
Resources
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