When Governor Terry McAuliffe’s SOL Innovation Committee began studying alternative assessment practices across the Commonwealth, one of the first organizations tapped for information on innovative approaches was Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS).

In October, Dr. Don Robertson, assistant superintendent of planning, innovation and accountability, and Dr. Brian Matney, principal of Landstown High School, were called upon to co-facilitate a session called “Virginia’s Assessment Innovators, Part 1: Authentic, Alternative, Performance-Based and International Assessments in Virginia Beach City Public Schools.” Robertson is chair of the division’s Strategic Planning Implementation Steering Committee (SPISC) which has been guiding implementation of the Compass to 2015 strategic plan and Matney serves on the state’s SOL Innovation Committee as well as SPISC.

The SOL Innovation Committee, which is charged with recommending further reforms to the Standards of Learning, was interested in learning more about the division’s approach to developing a culture of relevant, balanced assessment. Robertson and Matney highlighted the locally developed Integrated Peformance Task (IPT) for fourth- and seventh-graders; the OECD Tests for Schools for 15-year-old students and the CWRA+ for juniors in high school.

OECD stands for Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) evaluates education systems worldwide by testing 15-year-olds in key subjects.

CWRA stands for College and Work Readiness Assessment. It is an assessment that tests high school students on their 21st century skills of critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving and written communication.

In the session facilitated for the SOL Innovation Committee, Robertson and Matney set forth the need for an assessment platform that goes beyond the traditional SOL assessments and truly accentuates measurement of globally competitive skills. The committee had the opportunity to review each assessment and hear how results are used to guide instructional decision making at the division, school and teacher level.

As a member of the SOL Innovation Committee, Matney had an inside track on why VBCPS was invited to share its practices.

“This invitation was certainly a notable acknowledgement of the cutting-edge assessment reform encouraged, and achieved, here in Virginia Beach over the past several years,” Matney said. “As the innovation committee convenes regularly over the next two years, Virginia Beach has been asked to continue helping inform its important work, which is poised to guide practice in 134 school divisions throughout the Old Dominion in the future.”