Raleigh schools improve test scores

Sep. 1—Of West Virginia's 55 counties, Raleigh County school district ranks 14th highest with its state assessment scores for the 2022-23 school year — one spot higher in the rankings from a year ago.

Penny Lowery, the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for Raleigh Schools, said her goal is to crack the top ten in the coming year.

At a recent Raleigh County Board of Education meeting, Lowery shared the district's 2022-23 West Virginia General Summative Assessment Scores with board members and staff.

As a whole, test scores for Raleigh School District have been trending upward since taking a hit in 2020 with the onset of Covid.

In all three tested subjects — math, reading and science — Raleigh students' proficiency rate for the 2022-23 school year was above the district's pre-pandemic rates.

Raleigh County's proficiency percentage was also above the state in all grade levels in reading and math, except in fourth grade, which was one percent under the state average in math, Lowery said.

Among southern West Virginia counties, the Raleigh County School District holds the highest ranking for its test scores for '22-'23 with the closest in rank being Monroe County Schools at 24th. The majority of school districts in the area rank in the mid-30s with Wyoming at 31, Greenbrier at 33, Mercer at 34 and Nicholas at 35, according to data from schooldigger.com, which is where Lowery said she found her school rankings.

The lowest-performing schools in the area are Fayette at 49, Summers at 54 and McDowell in last at 55.

A district's proficiency percentage is determined by averaging the proficiency percentage from each of the grade levels tested.

End-of-year assessments are administered to students across the state in third through eighth grade and 11th grade in math and reading. Students in grades fifth, eighth and 11th are also given assessments in science.

In looking at the data from the West Virginia General Summative Assessment Scores, Lowery said it's important to remember that the data does not take into account or identify the possible triggers that contributed to a school's high or low scores.

She said that data will be released in a few months as part of the West Virginia Schools Balanced Scorecard.

Lowery said the Balanced Scorecard will give specifics on each school including the number of qualified teachers at each school, the teacher-to-student ratio, attendance rates, discipline issues, demographics and other factors.

"What we have right now is really just scores," she said. "The (Balanced Scorecard) will give everybody a more comprehensive look at why we are where we're at."

While there are areas that need improvement, Lowery said the students, teachers and staff should be proud of themselves for the progress they've made.

"I think with a county our size, and with two of our schools that are at the low end of the low (socio-economic status) group ... we've really done a lot of work to pull ourselves up there. And even those low schools either stayed the same or improved," she said.

Lowery said focus areas for the district in reading will be informational text, literary text and writing and language. The focus areas in math will be modeling and problem-solving; measurement, data and geometry; and expressions, equations and number systems.

Raleigh County

elementary schools

The area where Raleigh Schools sees the largest variation in test scores is in its 17 elementary schools, where the district has schools in both the top and bottom ten in the state.

Raleigh's highest-performing elementary schools are Hollywood, ranked sixth in the state, and Crescent, which ranked 16th.

Beckley and Stratton are the lowest performing elementary schools, ranking 365th and 366th respectively out of the 368 elementary schools in West Virginia. Last year, Stratton was ranked last out of all West Virginia elementary schools but was able to gain two places with its '22-'23 assessment scores.

All Raleigh elementary schools improved in at least one or two subjects.

Among the schools that had the biggest spikes in proficiency was Stanaford, which went up 20 percentage points in math to 72 percent. Stanaford also went up 17 points in science.

Maxwell Hill went up 20 points in reading and 21 points in science. Maxwell Hill went up 63 spots in state elementary school rankings and is 43rd in the state based on '22-'23 test scores.

Stanaford had the biggest gain in science of all Raleigh elementary schools with 38 points and also holds the top proficiency percentage in the county with 61 percent. Currently ranked 92nd in the state, Stanaford also had the greatest increase in state rankings, gaining 71 spots.

Scores at Bradley and Clear Fork had the county's highest percentage decline.

While Bradley went up seven points in math, it dropped 20 points in reading and 12 in science. In the county, Bradley's average score has it falling somewhere in the middle but at the state level is on the higher end ranking at 126th.

Clear Fork falls in the lower third when compared to all 368 elementary schools in West Virginia with its ranking of 249th. With its '21-'22 test scores, Clear Fork was 119 places higher in the state elementary rankings but experienced a 13-point decrease in math proficiency and a 32-point decrease in science.

Lowery said the county is looking to aid its lowest-performing schools by adding Early Childhood Classroom Assistant Teachers (ECCATs) in the six lowest performing schools in reading — which would be, in order from highest to lowest, Cranberry, Bradley, Coal City, Marsh Fork, Beckley and Stratton.

Lowery said this is going above and beyond what the state is requiring. The state recently passed a law requiring ECCATs in every first-grade classroom with more than 13 students.

Lowery said they already have ECCATs in the district's preschool and kindergarten classrooms.

To pay for these extra ECCAT positions in second grade, Lowery said the county will use leftover ESSER funds (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds), which were given to counties during Covid.

"We felt like that was going to bring us more quality than interventionist because they'll be there all day, every day, in those low-performing second grades," she said. "And we also felt that was also going to give us a jump on it because next year, '24-'25, we're required (by the state) to have (ECCATs) in second grade."

By the '25-'26 school year, Lowery said the state is requiring ECCATs in grades through third grade in every class with over 13 students.

Raleigh County

middle schools

All of Raleigh County's middle schools either stayed the same or improved their proficiency in math and reading.

The only decreases occurred at Independence and Trap Hill, which went down two percent points in science.

Out of the 168 middle schools in West Virginia, Raleigh's top performing middle schools were Park, which ranked 14th, Shady Spring ranked 27th and Independence ranked 32nd with Trap Hill not far behind as 57th in the state.

Raleigh's lowest-performing middle school was Beckley-Stratton, which ranked 135th in the state.

Lowery said one area of concern that was highlighted by the scores is that students seem to be struggling when they transition from elementary to middle school.

"There's a disconnect between the elementary and middle schools," she said.

As an example, Lowery pointed out the proficiency rates for Hollywood and Crescent, which had the county's top proficiency percentages in math and reading, all above 60 percent.

She then pointed to Park Middle, which is where the majority of students from Hollywood and Crescent end up.

While Park is still the county's top performing middle school that is also ranked high at the state level, it's sitting at 44 percent proficiency for math and 54 percent proficiency for reading.

"That's a huge drop in their proficiency, and that is something that we're going to take a focus on this year," Lowery said. "We're going to really hit those secondary schools to find out what is happening between that area that we're not getting right. Why are they leaving elementary school with such high proficiency ... and going into the middle schools and dropping?"

Raleigh County

high schools

High schools in Raleigh County all made positive strides in their '22-'23 proficiency rates.

Showing the largest growth was Woodrow Wilson, which increased its math proficiency by 11 percent, reading by 14 percent and science by 14 percent.

Compared to the other 112 high schools in the state, Woodrow Wilson ranked seventh after having climbed 41 spots from the previous year.

For the remaining Raleigh County high schools, Shady Spring ranked 20th in the state, Liberty was 57th and Independence was 63rd. These three Raleigh high schools also climbed at least 10 spots in the state rankings.

The only Raleigh high school to not increase its proficiency was Liberty, but it was only in a single subject. For science, Liberty recorded the same proficiency as the previous school year.

In all the other high schools for math, reading and science, student proficiency increased by at least one percent. Raleigh high school students improved the most in math with Woodrow gaining 11 points, Shady gaining nine, Indy gaining seven and Liberty gaining four.

West Virginia General Summative Assessment Scores for all 55 counties can be found at zoomwv.k12.wv.us.

Email: jmoore@register-herald.com