Berkeley County Schools board debates rollout, exemptions and staffing changes tied to Third Grade Success Act

District administrators spent more than an hour outlining how Berkeley County Schools will implement West Virginia's Third Grade Success Act (House Bill 3035, 2023), including diagnostic timelines, tiered interventions, "good cause" exemptions and operational steps for summer school and staffing changes.

The presentation, delivered to the board during the Nov. 4 meeting, said the district will use i-Ready diagnostic assessments within the first 30 days of the school year and a winter diagnostic to identify students who are on grade level, approaching grade level or multiple grade levels behind. The district said it is expanding screening and interventions so that K'8 teachers receive state-provided training on the science of reading and that the state has opened additional cohorts for fourth and fifth grades.

"We are still following our tiered systems of support," an administrator leading the update said. "Tier 1 is universal instruction, tier 2 is small-group targeted intervention and tier 3 is individualized, intensive…