Isle of Wight County Schools staff briefed the school board on a new Virginia Department of Education accountability framework and the immediate consequence that Hardy Elementary will be federally identified for a subgroup, requiring an action plan.

Accountability staff explained the framework uses component scores—mastery, growth and readiness for elementary and middle schools, and mastery, readiness and graduation for high school—to arrive at an overall framework score. Because several Isle of Wight schools are missing indicators due to grade configurations, VDOE adjusts component weighting by redistributing missing indicator percentages across other components.

Staff said Carrollton Elementary was paired with Westside as a feeder for growth indicators and that some schools therefore include other schools’ data in particular components. Hardy Elementary was federally identified for its students-with-disabilities subgroup; under VDOE rules that identification lowers a school’s final performance category by one level, even when the overall framework score is relatively strong. Officials said Hardy’s framework score is among the higher elementary scores in the division but the federal identification moved Hardy to an "off track" final category.

Division staff warned the board they do not yet have the VDOE template for the required action plan, but the plan will be due Jan. 30 and will be brought back to the board for approval. The presentation repeatedly noted that federal identification does not automatically mean additional federal funds: the pot of federal assistance is fixed and more identified schools can dilute per-school funding, meaning most follow-up work will be locally funded.

Board members asked for clarification on subgroup calculations, the role of the framework score vs. federal identification, and whether the new framework should be used as a benchmark. Staff recommended using the framework with caveats and offered to present clearer slides showing score ranges (e.g., mastery scored 0–55) to avoid misinterpretation.

The board directed staff to prepare the Hardy action plan once the VDOE template is available and to return with an approved plan for board consideration before the Jan. 30 deadline.