While she knows there’s been a lot of concern raised from longtime Virginia educators about the new system, Henry County Schools Superintendent Dr. Amy Blake-Lewis said she’s looking forward to the new system because it’s similar to what she experienced while working in North Carolina.
“I’m not fearful of it. I think that what we’re going to get from it is better data. There’s going to be layering in of VVAAS (Virginia’s Visualization and Analytics Solutions) data. In North Carolina they referred to it as EVAAS (Education Value-Added Assessment System) data,” she said.
Blake-Lewis said VVAAS will give the school division individualized student data information that will help it serve its students more and at a better level. “I’m actually looking forward to this new system,” she added.
Blake-Lewis said the new system will absolutely impact the school system.
“Typically, what you expect to see when you convert from one system of accountability to another inevitably, you’re going to have some difficulty with disaggregating the data and being able to know exactly what it’s telling you right out of the gate,” she said.
Noting there will be a learning curve, Blake-Lewis said principals and division-level staff will have to learn how to look at the new data reports. However, she believes it will ultimately help them to be better at what they do and give them a better indication of the type of individualized instruction students need from them.
Blake-Lewis said also she feels positive about the new system because it will focus on the growth aspect in a different way.
“Using that VVAAS data is going to help us to determine which students are growing, which ones might be stagnant, which ones may be falling behind, so that personalization aspect of the new data reports is really going to be something that can help us do better for our students,” she said.
The new accreditation system also will take more factors into account instead of primarily relying on Standards of Learning (SOL) scores. Blake-Lewis said factors like proficiency, growth, chronic absenteeism, career readiness indicators, and others will be examined.
For middle school and elementary school students, Blake-Lewis said the high school indicator readiness models will be used.
“I think a lot of good things to help us always to focus on moving students forward and not being satisfied with ‘oh, they made a 400,’ because under the current system, 400 is the mark of proficiency,” she explained.
“So, whether a child scores 425 or 400, that’s proficient, but this new model is actually going to help us to really look at why is the child consistently scoring 400 and they’re not doing better than that. You know, what could we be doing differently to help that child move from just barely proficient to highly proficient,” she said.
For students who are constantly stuck in the 375 range on SOL testing, Blake-Lewis said this new accreditation system can help staff learn why they can’t seem to get the students to 400.
“It’s going to help us collect that data that will better inform us in making those kinds of decisions to help the students,” she said.
Martinsville Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Dr. Angilee Downing said the new accreditation system means that the state and federal accountability standards will align, which will make it easier for families and community to understand.
“Accreditation will now be based on compliance with the Standards of Quality, and schools will be given performance index measurements and ratings based on that performance index. The performance index is a weighted measure with many different components related to mastery, growth, and readiness,” she said.
Downing said the Martinsville school division is looking forward to previewing its school reports under this new framework and is hopeful that it will provide its families and community with the information it needs about the schools.
