Virginia’s School Quality Profile reports (www.schoolquality.virginia.gov) now include features that allow users to easily share information about school performance and quality, including printable “at-a-glance” reports, image files and tools for sharing reports on social media and websites.
“Some of these new features reflect suggestions we received from parents and other members of the public after the School Quality Profiles were first made available online last fall,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Steven R. Staples said. “With these improvements, the School Quality Profiles are an even better resource for parents, educators and any other members of the public who want to know about the performance of our schools and the challenges — such as absenteeism and childhood hunger — that can impact learning and achievement.”
School Quality Profiles are the interactive report cards for schools, divisions and the commonwealth that were initially made available to the public last October. The state Board of Education developed the online reports in response to legislation from the 2015 General Assembly to redesign the commonwealth’s School Performance Report Cards.
In developing the School Quality Profiles, the Board of Education included reports on topics that were not presented in the previous school report cards, including absenteeism, suspensions and expulsions, and eligibility and participation of students in school nutrition programs.
“Accreditation ratings and achievement on Standards of Learning assessments are important, but so too are the factors that can influence how well students perform on the SOLs,” Board of Education President Billy K. Cannaday Jr. said.
School Quality Profiles include snapshot reports with high-level information and detailed interactive charts and data tables organized under the following topics: accountability, assessment results, enrollment, finance, learning climate and teacher quality.
Interactive pie and bar charts allow for easy comparisons of the performance of demographic groups within a school, division or the commonwealth. The charts also allow users to compare school-level performance with performance in the division and statewide.
“The interactive graphics of the School Quality Profiles reveal important facts about quality and performance that otherwise might be lost in the data,” Staples said. “Users can drill down to exactly the level of information they want, and if there are achievement gaps or other areas in need of improvement, those become obvious as the user interacts with the display.”
Staples said additional reports will be added to the School Quality Profiles to meet new accountability requirements as the Board of Education revises the commonwealth’s school accreditation standards and implements the federal Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015.
— Submitted by Charles B. Pyle
