CHARLESTON – The West Virginia Board of Education received several reports during its monthly meeting Wednesday, including the annual Balanced Scorecard and a look at chronic absenteeism.

The West Virginia Department of Education released the Balanced Scorecard for the 2023-24 school year.

Georgia Hughes-Webb, director of data analysis and research for the department, told board members that this year’s Balanced Scorecard included a number of small improvements from recent years.

“There have been a lot of metrics that have seen small improvements … which is encouraging,” Hughes-Webb said. “Of course, we’d like the improvements to be bigger. We’d like to be making gains faster, but progress is progress.”

The Balanced Scorecard looks at multiple factors, including test scores from the annual statewide assessment in grades three, eight and 11. It first debuted for the 2017-2018 school year after Gov. Jim Justice called for the end of a previous system that graded schools on an A-F scale.

The Balanced Scorecard for the previous school year showed that 56.1% of West Virginia students partially met standard for English Language Arts (ELA), a more than one-point improvement from 55% of students during the 2022-2023 school year and a 4.5% improvement from 51.6% during the 2020-2021 school year when learning was disrupted by COVID-19 shutdowns and remote learning.

Last school year’s ELA scores were only .8% lower than the 56.9% ELA assessment score during the 2018-2019 school year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Testing was scrapped during the 2019-2020 school year due to Justice shutting down the schools in March 2020 during the start of the pandemic. As a result of the improvements, the state’s ELA performance last school year was given a yellow classification for partially meeting standards.

Math performance during the 2023-24 school year was 50.9% for partially meeting standards, shown as yellow. That’s only a .3% improvement from 50.6% in the 2022-2023 school year. While a 6.9% increase in math proficiency from 44% during the 2020-2021 school year, it was 2.6% below pre-COVID math proficiency numbers for the 2018-2019 school year of 56.9%.

Looking at elementary grades for the previous school year, 58.12% of students were proficient in ELA and 59.36% were proficient in math, both receiving a yellow. ELA proficiency for middle school students (54.38%) and high school students (56.57%) were also labeled yellow for partially meeting standards. But math proficiency for middle school students (48.14%) and high school students (39.55%) were labeled red for not meeting standards.

Chronic absenteeism in West Virginia’s public schools remains a problem since the closures of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the rate of absenteeism is decreasing.

According to a report presented by State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt to the West Virginia Board of Education at their monthly meeting Wednesday, the percentage of chronically absent students during the 2023-2024 school year was 23.5%, down from 27.6% during the previous school year.

“I think we’re on the right track,” Blatt told board members.

“That’s a 4% decrease in chronic absenteeism in the course of one year,” Hughes-Webb said. “That is very, very encouraging.”

Out of West Virginia’s 55 county school systems, 93% of county school districts have improved their rates of chronic absenteeism, and three out of every four schools in the state. While elementary and middle schools have seen around 4% decreases in chronic absenteeism over the last two previous school years, the rate of chronic absenteeism in high schools decreased by 8%.

Chronically absent students are defined as students who miss 10% or more of the school year during the required 180 days of instruction.

When it comes to educational attainment, the data shows substantial differences between consistently present students and chronically absent students. In English Language Arts proficiency, students in school regularly were 48% proficient in ELA compared to 34.6% of chronically absent students. In math, students attending school regularly were 39.5% proficient, while chronically absent students were 21.5% proficient.

Earlier this year, the West Virginia Legislature passed Senate Bill 568, creating a multi-tiered system for school absenteeism. Among other things, the new law requires county school systems to make contact either in-person, phone, or virtually with parents and guardians once a student has one unexcused absence, and again after three unexcused absences and five unexcused absences.

Once a student reaches 10 unexcused absences, county attendance directors can file criminal complaints against the parents/guardians/custodians in magistrate court, which can then begin legal actions if there is probable cause.

The law also requires the state Board of Education to develop a system of support plan to encourage student attendance. These systems of support include school principals and county attendance directors making periodic contact with students with chronically absent records to determine reasons for the absences and find out how the school system can help, as well as stress the importance of school attendance.

Blatt said the state has joined a national program called Attendance Works, with states pledging to reduce chronic absenteeism by 50% over the next five years. According to federal data for the 2021-2022 school year – the first full school year after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the nation – more than 14 million students were chronically absent. That is more than double the number of chronically absent students pre-COVID.

“We have joined in their pledge,” Blatt said. “We’re one of 14 states that have done this to reduce chronic absenteeism by 50% over the next five years … So, we’re on track to start that reduction.”