CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Nearly two dozen West Virginia public schools have been identified as needing additional state resources following the results of the 2022 Balanced Scorecard.
The scorecard for all schools was released during Wednesday’s state Board of Education meeting.
The list of schools that will receive CSI (Comprehensive Support and Improvement) include a dozen elementary schools, six middle schools and three high schools.
State Department of Education Support and Accountability Officer Charlene Coburn outlined the additional assistance the 21 schools will get from the state.
“They will receive a diagnostic visit. They will be assigned a coordinator who will be the liaison for that school and our office in order to assure that they are receiving the support that we have available to them,” Coburn told the state BOE members.
MORE see West Virginia Balanced Scorecard here
The schools are located in 16 counties. Kanawha, Barbour, Berkeley, Summers and Randolph have two schools each on the list. Coburn said the 21 schools were either red (Does Meet Standard) in all categories on the scorecard or red in all academic categories as well as attendance.
“These are the indicators that landed these schools on this list,” Coburn said.
State Board of Education member Debra Sullivan said she’s hopeful the additional resources and the work of the school communities can help the schools improve.
“It’s a snapshot of what is. We have to believe it’s not a snapshot of what can be. We can transform these numbers, not we, but the folks in the counties, in the schools, in the classrooms,” Sullivan said.
Coburn said 33 of 34 schools who were placed on the CSI list in 2018-19 have emerged from school improvement status.
“Those schools are making progress and we’re very proud of that,” Coburn said.
According to the state Department of Education, 45 of 55 school districts improved their scorecard points in the area of English Language Arts while 53 of 55 districts improved their scorecard point in Math Performance.
The department said the pandemic continues to have an impact on county school systems.
“Most districts have not yet seen their ELA and mathematics achievement indicators recover to pre-pandemic levels,” Wednesday’s news release said. “However, 47 districts are within five percentage points of their prior performance in ELA, and 34 districts are within the same margin in mathematics.”
State Board of Education President Paul Hardesty repeated several times during Wednesday’s meeting that he wants to improve student achievement during his time as president.
“We’re going to get back to the basics. We’re going to go back to reading, writing, math and English Language Arts as our core and we’re going to focus on student achievement,” Hardesty said.
The state Board of Education’s next meeting is set for Oct. 12.