Statewide, 15% of schools would be rated “distinguished,” 50% “on track,” 23% “on poor track,” and 12% “needs intensive support,” based on data from last school year.

The rankings are unofficial, as the first official results will be released next fall based on schools’ performance during this school year. The numbers released Friday differ slightly from the numbers released by the administration last month, which some lawmakers fear could confuse the public.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin held a news conference Friday to tout the new system and announce that school performance data is publicly available online.

“What we are doing is what our students deserve, our families deserve, and I firmly believe that Virginia is leading the way for the nation on how to transform itself and enable the education of Virginians in the future ” Youngkin said.

The governor left the press conference after his speaking turn and did not respond to reporters’ questions.

State Board of Education President Grace Creasey said the state’s old accreditation system “lacked transparency for all stakeholders to understand how well schools were serving their students.”

The data released by the state Friday did not include each school’s grades, but did include all the data needed to calculate grades based on the formula. Grades are based on a numerical system but also change based on certain federal designations that indicate that the performance of certain groups of students is disparate compared to that of their peers.

State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, chairwoman of the Senate Education and Health Committee — and a candidate for her party’s nomination for lieutenant governor in 2025 — told reporters Friday afternoon that the system lacked transparency.

“The data doesn’t seem reliable,” Hashmi said. “In this dashboard presented to us, there is no clarity as to what type of data we are looking at and why these numbers have fluctuated.”

The State Board of Education voted to approve the new system in late August. At the time, a consultant hired by the state Department of Education said it was “not out of the question” that, based on 2022-23 results, “lagging” schools and “in need of intensive support” could represent around 70% of all schools. . The agency and its consultants acknowledged that the data was then incomplete.

Data based on last school year’s results fluctuated slightly from October to November because more data was collected from school divisions, according to administration.

“I think it’s necessary to get this right,” Hashmi said. “I don’t understand why there’s a rush and why the numbers keep fluctuating and why we can’t get the correct numbers that we need to make the appropriate decisions.”