Find out how your school measures up on assessments, safety, staffing and other factors

April Barton, Burlington Free Press
·4 min read

How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted learning and other school outcomes for Vermont students? A couple new reports give some insight.

The Agency of Education released the Annual Snapshot which shows the progress school districts are making in key areas and the Vermont Education Dashboard was updated to include school-specific state assessment test results from 2021.

The annual snapshot database is searchable by school, school district/supervisory union or town and the dashboard can be searched by school allowing you to see how your child's school fared in comparison to others across the state or district.

Parents would have received their individual child's Smarter Balance Assessment System (SBAC) and Vermont Science Assessment (VTSA) standardized test scores last summer or fall and the statewide results came out in November. However, this is the first time all of Vermont schools' 2021 standardized test results are being released publicly.

State test results for 2021: What Vermont test scores show about the impact of COVID pandemic on learning

A document from the Vermont Agency of Education demonstrating how to read state standardized test scores. Pictured Nov. 2021.
A document from the Vermont Agency of Education demonstrating how to read state standardized test scores. Pictured Nov. 2021.

What the annual snapshot measures

Vermont Secretary of Education Dan French said the Annual Snapshot results are difficult to interpret this year.

"We know from local assessments, other data points, and a range of anecdotal evidence that many students struggled last year," he said in a statement. "As we move forward, good data and assessments of progress, both in the classroom, and out, will be critical to recovery and revitalization.”

The agency said comparing 2021 data to previous years is difficult because of the disruption to testing the pandemic caused and trends have been interrupted because there is no data from 2020 when standardized tests were cancelled.

The Annual Snapshot analyzes schools based on five domains:

  • Academic Proficiency which includes assessment results, graduation rates and college and career readiness.

  • Personalization showing to what extent students are able to direct their learning.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools, which includes suspensions and expulsions for historically marginalized populations.

  • High Quality Staffing.

  • Investment Priorities, which looks at staffing ratios and per student expenditures to determine whether the community feels the money is being used appropriately.

A Champlain Valley Union High School student performs calculations for school work while masked and distant from the nearest student in accordance with COVID-19 regulations. Picture provided Jan. 2021.
A Champlain Valley Union High School student performs calculations for school work while masked and distant from the nearest student in accordance with COVID-19 regulations. Picture provided Jan. 2021.

How are Chittenden County school districts faring in the snapshot?

Burlington School District

  • Academic Proficiency — Approaching proficiency in general but not meeting proficiency in historically underserved populations.

  • Personalization — Approaching personalization though it declined most recently. Exceeding personalization for historically underserved students.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools — Exceeding overall but not meeting for historically underserved students.

  • High Quality Staffing — Exceeding overall and has shown recent improvement.

  • Investment Priorities — Approaching meeting the community's needs.

Champlain Valley School District

  • Academic Proficiency — Meeting proficiency overall; not meeting proficiency for historically underserved students.

  • Personalization — Exceeding personalization but showed some recent decline. Not meeting personalization for historically underserved students but showed significant growth recently.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools — Exceeding overall and approaching for students historically underserved.

  • High Quality Staffing — Exceeding and showed significant growth recently.

  • Investment Priorities — Approaching meeting community needs.

Colchester School District

  • Academic Proficiency — Approaching proficiency overall; not meeting proficiency for historically underserved populations.

  • Personalization — Approaching personalization and saw recent growth in that area. Exceeding in personalization for historically underserved students.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools — Exceeding overall; not meeting for historically underserved populations.

  • High Quality Staffing — Exceeding and showed significant growth recently.

  • Investment Priorities — Approaching meeting community needs.

Nicole Walsh teaches her 5th grade class at Founders Memorial School, Sept. 17, 2020. She instructs 9 students Monday/Tuesday and 8 students Thursday/Friday in the hybrid schedule Essex Westford School District adopted to begin the Fall 2020 school year. Walsh's three children attend the district's Virtual Academy, learning remotely from home, to protect family members who are medically compromised during the pandemic.

Essex-Westford School District

  • Academic Proficiency — Meeting proficiency overall, but not meeting it for historically underserved students.

  • Personalization — Exceeding personalization including significant recent growth in that area; approaching meeting personalization for historically marginalized populations and showed significant growth recently.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools — Exceeding overall but not meeting for historically marginalized students.

  • High Quality Staffing — Exceeding but saw some recent decline.

  • Investment Priorities — Approaching community needs but some decline recently.

Milton Town School District

  • Academic Proficiency — Approaching proficiency but not meeting for historically underserved students.

  • Personalization — Exceeding personalization overall and for those in historically underserved populations. However, there was a recent decline for both groups.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools — Meeting generally but not meeting for historically underserved students.

  • High Quality Staffing — Exceeding and saw significant growth in this area recently.

  • Investment Priorities — Meeting community needs with significant growth recently.

Mount Mansfield Unified Union School District

  • Academic Proficiency — Meeting proficiency overall but not meeting it for historically underserved students.

  • Personalization — Approaching personalization, however, exceeding it for historically underserved students.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools — Exceeding standards both generally and for historically underserved students.

  • High Quality Staffing — Exceeding and showed significant growth recently.

  • Investment Priorities — Approaching meeting community needs but showed some recent decline.

Logan Newton prefers to use two screens while engaing in learning at home, seen Sept. 21, 2020. On his desktop he can access Google Classroom and complete school work; he uses his Chromebook laptop for virtual Zoom meetings with his teachers and classmates. The fifth grader is a student of the Virtual Academy, offered to as an option for families of the Essex Westford School District who wanted to keep kids at home during the pandemic.

South Burlington School District

  • Academic Proficiency — Meeting academic proficiency generally but not for historically underserved students.

  • Personalization — Meeting personalization in general and exceeding for historically underserved students.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools — Exceeding generally and approaching for historically underserved students.

  • High Quality Staffing — Exceeding but showed some recent declines.

  • Investment Priorities —Approaching meeting community needs.

Winooski School District

  • Academic Proficiency — Not meeting proficiency overall or for historically underserved populations.

  • Personalization — Exceeding personalization but saw some recent decline.

  • Safe, Healthy Schools — Exceeding in general and approaching standards for historically underserved students.

  • High Quality Staffing — Exceeding and showed significant growth recently.

  • Investment Priorities — Approaching meeting community needs.

To review the two statewide reports, use these links:

Vermont Annual Snapshot at https://schoolsnapshot.vermont.gov/. You can click on each of the five key areas to get more detailed information.

Vermont Education Dashboard at https://education.vermont.gov/data-and-reporting/vermont-education-dashboard/assessment.

Contact reporter April Barton at abarton@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1854. Follow her on Twitter @aprildbarton.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Annual Snapshot, Education Dashboard show COVID impact on VT students