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Five of Isle of Wight County’s nine public schools’ are performing at or above their pre-pandemic pass rates on at least one of Virginia’s Standards of Learning tests.

The Virginia Department of Education recently released test scores for the 2023-24 school year, which, with few exceptions, showed Isle of Wight continuing to rebound from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The division and each school exceeded the statewide pass rate on every test.

Hardy Elementary saw 75% of its third- and fourth-graders enrolled last year pass the reading SOL. It’s a four-point drop from the 79% who passed the prior year, but still in excess of the 71% who passed in 2018-19 and the statewide 73% 2023-24 pass rate. Hardy’s math SOL pass rate, at 77%, was the same as the school’s percentage for 2018-19.

Windsor Elementary saw 80% of its third- through fifth-graders pass the reading SOL, up seven percentage points from the 73% who passed in 2022-23, but below the 82% who passed in 2018-19. Windsor’s math pass rate, at 85%, is three points below its 88% 2018-19 pass rate. However, the school’s 66% pass rate on the science SOL is equal to the percentage that passed in 2018-19 and its history SOL pass rate, at 88%, is two points higher than that of 2018-19. The history and science SOLs are given only to students in grades 5 and 8-12.

An analysis of scores from the three school years prior to the pandemic shows all but two schools testing at or above pass rates reported for the 2016-17 through 2018-19 school years. However, only the 2018-19 scores reflect an accurate pre-pandemic comparison to 2023-24 results due to changes in test content since 2018, according to division officials.

“Comparing IWCS data from 16-17 to state data from 16-17 would be apples to apples, but not IWCS data from 16-17 to 23-24,” said IWCS spokeswoman Lynn Briggs.

New standards for the math SOL went into effect during the 2018-19 school year. Reading SOL standards changed in 2020-21. Some history and science standards also changed in 2020-21 and 2022-23, respectively.

“When standards change, the new standards are tested in the spring,” Briggs said. “Our high school students testing at the end of first semester are testing on the current standards, where second semester students are tested on the new standards.   Overall data from these testing years can be a bit tricky to decipher, which is why schools look at more detailed reports to find out areas of improvement.”

Carrsville Elementary, the least populous of the nine schools with 234 students, has bucked the statewide trend of academic impacts from the pandemic, with reading SOL scores at or above its 73% 2018-19 pass rate in all four school years since. The 80% of third- through fifth-graders who passed the reading SOL reflect a seven-point increase over the 73% pass rate from 2022-23. Carrsville also saw 85% of its third- through fifth-graders pass the math SOL, up one point from the 84% it reported in 2022-23 and in 2018-19.

Westside Elementary, the most populous of Isle of Wight’s five elementary schools with 739 fourth- through sixth-graders, saw 78% of its students pass the reading SOL and 77% pass the math test. The former is unchanged from the percentage that passed the 2022-23 reading test and is on par with the 78% who passed the 2018-19 test. The latter is three points below the 80% who passed the math test in 2018-19.

Westside saw a 67% pass rate on the science SOL, compared to 78% in 2018-19, but tested on par with its 78% pass rate from 2018-19 on the history SOL.

Carrollton Elementary, which had 567 students in pre-kindergarten through third grade last year, is among the outliers that haven’t seen their SOL scores return to pre-pandemic pass rates. Carrollton’s pre-pandemic reading pass rates for the three years prior to 2020 ranged from 78% to 83%. In 2021-22, Carrollton saw a 73% pass rate, up from 65% the prior year, but that rate has since fallen to 72% in 2022-23 and to 69% in 2023-24. 

Carrollton saw 77% of its third-graders pass the math SOL this past school year, up from 75% the two years prior. The score is below the 88% who passed in 2018-19.

Carrollton’s data, compared to the division’s other elementary schools, is skewed by its overall pass rate being determined solely by one grade level, as SOL testing in Virginia doesn’t start until third grade.

Georgie D. Tyler Middle School saw 79% of its 373 sixth- through eighth-graders pass the reading SOL in 2023-24, up from 78% the prior year. But the rate is still lower than the 86% who passed the reading test in 2018-19.

Georgie Tyler saw 80% of its students pass the math SOL, up from 77% the prior year, though it’s still below the 88% pass rate from 2018-19.

Georgie Tyler saw a 78% pass rate on the history SOL, down from 81% in 2018-19, and a 67% pass rate on the science SOL, down from its pre-pandemic 84% score.

Smithfield Middle School, which has just over 600 seventh- through eighth-graders, saw 77% of its students pass the reading SOL and 76% pass the math test. The former is a one-point increase over the prior year and is on par with the 77% who passed in 2018-19. The latter is a five-point increase over last year but still below the 82% who passed in 2018-19.

SMS saw 75% of its students pass the history SOL, down from 85% in 2018-19, and 65% pass the science SOL, down from its pre-pandemic 84%.

Windsor High School saw 88% of its 527 students pass the reading SOL, down from 91% the prior year. Last year’s score was the first to exceed the school’s pre-pandemic 90% pass rate from 2018-19.

WHS saw an 83% math SOL pass rate, down from 90% the prior year. Last year’s score was the first to exceed the 86% pass rate from 2018-19.

WHS has yet to return to its pre-pandemic pass rates in history or science, reporting 75% and 81% scores, respectively, which are down from 90% and 86% in 2018-19.

Smithfield High School, the most populous in the county at just over 1,300 students, saw a 91% pass rate on the reading SOL and 88% on the math test. The former is five points higher than last year’s 86% pass rate and the first time since the 2018-19 school year that SHS has seen a reading pass rate in excess of that year’s 90%. The latter is six points higher than the 82% who passed the math SOL in 2022-23. SHS has exceeded its 9%math pass rate from 2018-19 every year since except for 2019-20 when SOLs were canceled statewide due to the pandemic, and 2020-21 when the school reported a 65% pass rate.

SHS remains below its pre-pandemic scores on the history and science SOLs, reporting a 64% pass rate on the former and a 75% pass rate on the latter, down from 73% and 84%, respectively, in 2018-19.

The 2023-24 school year also marked the first time Isle of Wight County Schools exceeded its divisionwide pre-pandemic pass rate on the writing SOL, with an 82% pass rate compared to 78% in 2018-19. The writing test is given only to students in grades 8-12.

Racial disparities in scores have also returned to pre-pandemic levels, but persist. The 2023-24 math pass rate among Black students, at 66%, is equal to the percentage that passed in 2016-17, but remains 20 points below the 86% pass rate among white students. The disparity reflects a decrease from the 29-point racial performance gap on the division’s 2020-21 math SOLs.

The divisionwide reading SOL results showed a 67% pass rate among Black students, up from 65% the prior two years, and equal to the percentage that passed in 2018-19. Over the past three school years, the reading SOL pass rate among white students has been 18 to 19 percentage points higher than the rate for Black students, which is on par with the racial performance gap the division saw over the three years prior to the start of the pandemic in 2020.

The results show Isle of Wight to have outperformed the state in closing racial disparities. Statewide, the pass rate among Black students was 22 percentage points lower than the rate for white students on the reading SOL, and 24 points lower on the math test.

Just under half of Isle of Wight students with disabilities passed their reading SOL and 47% passed the math tests. It’s the highest pass rate among that demographic for the reading test since the 2016-17 school year when 51% passed, and the highest rate in seven years for the math test.