Members of Southampton County Public Schools’ Central Office presented an SOL data report to the Southampton County School Board on Aug. 21 that highlighted the accreditation status of each school in the division and student SOL pass rates from spring 2024.

The reports pertaining to the status of each school’s accreditation stemmed from the Virginia Department of Education website.

The VDOE determines one of three different final performance levels for each relevant school quality indicator, and those levels are as follows: 

• Level 1: At or Above Standard;
• Level 2: Near Standard; or
• Level 3: Below Standard.

The VDOE also allows for one of three different statuses for a school with regard to accreditation:

• Accredited: All school quality indicators at Level 1 or Level 2 or waiver;
• Accredited With Conditions: One or more indicators at Level 3; or
• Accreditation Denied: Under state sanction.

CAPRON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Capron Elementary School’s status is Accredited.

The school is at Level 1 in English, mathematics, science and achievement gaps. 

The school is at Level 2 in chronic absenteeism.

The Spring 2024 percentage of Capron Elementary students to pass their SOL tests when taking into account raw, recovery and growth data and including no transfer students is as follows:

-3rd grade reading: 86.67%

-4th grade reading: 86.21%

-5th grade reading: 80.65%

• Total reading results: 84.44%

-3rd grade math: 100%

-4th grade math: 93.10%

-5th grade math: 93.10%

• Total math results: 95.45%
• 5th grade science: 68.97%
• 5th grade Virginia studies: 82.14%

SCPS Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Federal Programs Kelli Gillette said that to pass the SOL for reading, a school’s pass rate must be at least 75%; for math, science and history it must be at least 70%.

She noted that Capron’s fifth grade science number did not make the 70% standard.

“But we are able to use our three-year average, which makes us over the 70%,” she said.

MEHERRIN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Meherrin Elementary School’s status is Accredited With Conditions.

The school is at Level 1 in English, mathematics, achievement gaps and chronic absenteeism.

The school is at Level 3 in science.

The Spring 2024 percentage of Meherrin Elementary students to pass their SOL tests when taking into account raw, recovery and growth data and including no transfer students is as follows:

-3rd grade reading: 86.49%

-4th grade reading: 79.49%

-5th grade reading: 65.12%

• Total reading results: 76.47%

-3rd grade math: 94.29%

-4th grade math: 46.67%

-5th grade math: 26.19%

• Total math results: 54.21%
• 5th grade science: 58.54%
• 5th grade Virginia studies: 65.85%

School Board Member Brandon Rodgers said, “Looking at all the data, there’s an outlier at Meherrin — math. What’s our plan for doing some remediation and catch-up work with Meherrin with the other schools kind of performing significantly different?”

Gillette said, “One of the things with Meherrin is we did move math teachers around. We have different teachers in place, and we also have a different science teacher, and we’re going to especially focus on science since that’s our lowest one right now, but we’re going to focus really on third, fourth grade science, bringing them up, and then we’ll have extra help in fifth grade science. But again, we have a different teacher there. 

“So we’ve moved some things around,” she continued. “We have put some plans together for the beginning of the year to start in the beginning, like very first month, with when we say remediation, just going back over the third and fourth grade skills and not waiting to do after-school tutoring or anything, just starting right off.”

Rodgers said, “And that would follow our fifth grade schools to the middle school that are advancing? I guess what I’m asking is, it seems like the specific remediation plan for those students that didn’t pass would (be key), not just the teachers but also what’s our plan to make sure that we can help them catch up so that they’re not starting from behind?”

Gillette said, “We have hired a fully licensed math person in sixth grade, so we will have two licensed sixth grade staff persons for math.”

School Board Chair Dr. Deborah Goodwyn said, “But I think that one thing that we had talked about, Mr. Rodgers, was to talk about what (we’re) going to do in terms of curriculum, what (we’re) going to do in terms of instruction, how (we’re) going to structure the school day so that students are provided the instruction they need to perform well.”

Gillette added, “And I think we talked about that when we did the policies too, with the remediation, to make sure we were doing that before, during, after and Saturday Academy, we would have those options available too.”

Goodwyn noted that one of the agenda items for the meeting was addressing what the division was going to do in addition to or in place of remediation.

Rodgers said, “Yeah, I think curriculum is going to have to be looked at a little bit.”

NOTTOWAY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Nottoway Elementary School’s status is Accredited.

The school is at Level 1 in every category of school quality indicator: English, mathematics, science, achievement gaps and chronic absenteeism.

The Spring 2024 percentage of Nottoway Elementary students to pass their SOL tests when taking into account raw, recovery and growth data and including no transfer students is as follows:

-3rd grade reading: 97.06%

-4th grade reading: 95.74%

-5th grade reading: 88.89%

• Total reading results: 94.02%

-3rd grade math: 97.14%

-4th grade math: 95.24%

-5th grade math: 88.89%

• Total math results: 93.81%
• 5th grade science: 91.18%
• 5th grade Virginia studies: 97.06%

RIVERDALE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Riverdale Elementary School’s status is Accredited.

The school is at Level 1 in every category of school quality indicator: English, mathematics, science, achievement gaps and chronic absenteeism.

The Spring 2024 percentage of Riverdale Elementary students to pass their SOL tests when taking into account raw, recovery and growth data and including no transfer students is as follows:

-3rd grade reading: 84.29%

-4th grade reading: 85.90%

-5th grade reading: 73.12%

• Total reading results: 80.50%

-3rd grade math: 95.77%

-4th grade math: 97.44%

-5th grade math: 81.32%

• Total math results: 90.83%
• 5th grade science: 70.33%
• 5th grade Virginia studies: 91.11%

SOUTHAMPTON MIDDLE SCHOOL

Southampton Middle School’s status is Accredited.

The school is at Level 1 in English.

The school is at Level 2 in mathematics, science, achievement gaps and chronic absenteeism.

The Spring 2024 SOL pass rates for middle school students based on raw scores are as follows:

• 6th grade reading: 67%
• 6th grade math: 40%
• 7th grade reading: 75%
• 7th grade math: 62%
• 8th grade reading: 68%
• 8th grade math: 54%
• 8th grade civics: 60%
• 8th grade science: 41%
• Overall reading: 70%
• Overall math: 52%

Gillette noted that sixth and seventh graders do not test in science or history, so that is why there were only reading and math scores for them.

After listing the overall scores, she said, “So obviously those are things that we need to address as we talked about, with curriculum, things we can put in place, how we’re going to schedule our day to have the most productive instruction.”

Rodgers said, “Yeah, that speaks to some of the math trend that I’m concerned about that we are at sixth grade at a 40% pass rate in math, so some of that’s got to be transferring, so what you’ve got from elementary school moving into sixth grade math.”

School Board Vice Chair Denise Bunn noted that some of the elementary schools were doing well in math, and she said that a math specialist has been working at some of the different elementary schools.

“Now that we know that some of (the struggle with math) is feeding into the middle school because those children have now moved to the middle school, can we also have that math specialist that’s doing the elementary schools be involved in whatever improvement plans we’re doing for the middle school?” she asked.

Blunt said, “Absolutely.”

A slide in the SOL data presentation also highlighted middle school students’ SOL scores in reading, math and science across three different school years:

• 2021-22

-Reading: 73%

-Math: 78%

-Science: 71%

• 2022-23

-Reading: 54%

-Math: 68%

-Science: 64%

• 2023-24

-Reading: 77%

-Math: 69%

-Science: 59%

SOUTHAMPTON HIGH SCHOOL

Southampton High School’s status is Accredited.

The school is at Level 1 in English and mathematics.

The school is at Level 2 in science, achievement gaps, chronic absenteeism and college and career readiness.

The VDOE recently reported SOL pass rates for SHS students from three different school years:

• 2021-22

-History and Social Sciences: 47

-Mathematics: 86

-English – Reading: 84

-English – Writing: 73

-Science: 65

• 2022-23

-History and Social Sciences: 46

-Mathematics: 71

-English – Reading: 87

-English – Writing: 79

-Science: 64

• 2023-24

-History and Social Sciences: 33

-Mathematics: 73

-English – Reading: 81

-English – Writing: 68

-Science: 66

WAYS THE DIVISION IS ADDRESSING CONCERNS

Blunt made a point to address some of the concerns expressed by Rodgers about ways to improve student performance.

“There are a number of opportunities that we have explored to address weak areas or areas of deficiencies, and some of them include, as Ms. Gillette had mentioned, staff adjustments,” Blunt said. “We’re also looking at our school improvement plans, holding everyone accountable and having measurable, attainable and strategic goals.”

She said SCPS is using resources that are endorsed by the VDOE.

“Our All-In plans will address how we will work with students during the school day as well as after the school day ends, extending the school day and even some of our Saturday Academy initiatives,” she said. “We have scheduled for instructional monitoring. 

“Looking at the curriculum, we realize that there are some hiccups, so we’re looking at vertical as well as horizontal alignment,” she continued. “We have an observation schedule which will comprise of different sets of eyes going in to monitor instruction, as well as the performance of the students.”

She said the division has remediation plans and has also developed a specific plan for improvement in the area of science at Meherrin Elementary School.

“We are looking at our professional development opportunities such that they are meaningful and we can see the results of the participation in the professional development,” she said.

She noted that a well-known professional development presenter would be visiting SCPS and working closely with administrators “so that we know what we should be looking for and that we know what intelligent recommendations we should make in order to enhance our student achievement.”

She said, “Accountability is what we’re looking at, and we are writing so that we can say that if we write something, we can say that it was actually done, and we have held everyone accountable.”

School Board Member Christopher Smith Sr. said, “Are we able to look at best practices among our teachers here?”

“Absolutely,” Blunt replied. “We are employing best practices.”

She said SCPS principals have been actively engaged with developing school improvement plans based on data, and not a superficial analysis of the data.

“We are heightening our efforts to be more data driven,” she said.