Three schools earn the VDOE 2023 Continuous Improvement Exemplar Award

Barron Fundamental Elementary School, Bethel High School, and Phoebus High School are the recipients of the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) 2023 Continuous Improvement Exemplar Award.

For the 2022-2023 school year, 93 schools are being recognized for this award. To receive this recognition the school can be Accredited or Accredited with Conditions and must meet at least one of the following criteria: 

• The school demonstrates an increase in the combined rate for math, reading and science for each of the past three years (for 2022-2023 only, the three years are 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2021-2022), with a total increase across the three years of ten points or more; 

• The school demonstrates an increase in the combined rate for two or more student groups in reading and math for each of the past three years (for 2022-2023 only, the three years are 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2021-2022), with a total increase across the three years of ten points or more; 

• The school demonstrates an increase in the Graduation and Completion Index (GCI) for each of the past three years (for 2022-2023 only, the three years are 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2021-2022), with a total increase across the three years of four percent or more; and the school demonstrates a decrease in the dropout rate for each of the past three years (for 2022-2023 only, the three years are 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2021-2022), with the total reduction across three years of 15 percent or more of the first year’s dropout rate. 

“We continue to be proud of the student achievement results we are experiencing throughout the school division as well as the hard work of our students and staff,” said Hampton City Schools’ deputy superintendent for curriculum, instruction, and assessment Dr. John Caggiano. “This particular state recognition really highlights the division's commitment to all students, as the award celebrates schools' academic performance that demonstrates continuous progress on state assessments in multiple content areas, for multiple subjects and multiple groups of students, and has occurred consistently for the past three school years.”

 

The last time that recognitions were given was in the 2019-2020 school year. Due to the pandemic, accreditation was waived in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 and therefore, there was no accreditation data available for selection of these awards. The recognition cycle began again with accreditation year 2022-2023, based on 2021-2022 school year data.