WVEIS, which has been used since 1990, is West Virginia’s state longitudinal data system. Secure WVEIS servers store education records and information from the time the data are entered by school personnel. Data tools such as ZoomWV and the Early Warning System use the information already stored in WVEIS and make it available—in secure, aggregate public reports—for better educational decision making.

All data are certified for validity and accuracy before they are made available through ZoomWV.

WVEIS collects a broad array of student data, including those described in this report.

ZoomWV is the state’s single public source for accurate, high-quality education information pertaining to students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. ZoomWV helps drive improvement in instruction and student performance in West Virginia, in part by making information available in easy-to-understand aggregate reports at the state, regional, county, and school level. With ZoomWV, teachers, school, district regional, and state personnel will be able to make more informed educational decisions (see Potential uses of data in ZoomWV section to the left). And, as always, ZoomWV protects the privacy and confidentiality of West Virginia’s students (see Network security design section to the left).

Please visit ZoomWV FAQ section for more information.

Educators

ZoomWV offers a variety of information to inform your educational decisions whether you’re a teacher, principal, or superintendent. The single source of accurate information can help you understand the impact your work has had on students, do your job more efficiently, and most importantly, empower you to understand what’s working and what needs work. ZoomWV will help you find answers to questions like:

• How can we target improvement efforts to get maximum impact?
• Where have we been, where are we now, and what is our future?
• How is my school performing in relation to other schools in the district and state?
• What areas do we need to work on to make a difference for our students?
• Which areas need additional attention?
• What are we doing right?
• What are the professional development needs that will help improve instruction and overall school performance?

Families

At WVDE, we’re aware that you entrust the educators in our state with whom you value most: your child! ZoomWV will help you understand how the school your child attends is doing, which will help you make the best decisions for your child’s education and growth. ZoomWV will help you stay informed and engaged with your child’s school to support his or her success.

Additionally, ZoomWV can help you understand more about

• school improvement
• the current performance of your child’s school
• how your child’s school has performed over time
• the performance of schools across the state

Policymakers

ZoomWV will help you see the connections between the work you do and how those policies impact schools. You can find out more about your constituents, the performance of the schools and districts within your area, the alignment of initiatives and programs to existing code/policy, and answers to key policy questions. ZoomWV will also help you to see the effect policy decisions have on education quality in West Virginia.

Policies are rooted in identified needs; data help to show where needs exist. With ZoomWV’s user-friendly interface, you will be able to select parameters to run your own reports specific to your own questions and the needs of your constituents. ZoomWV will help you answer questions like

• How do our schools measure up?
• “What works” to improve schools/learning?
• Which areas have shown growth?
• What is the impact of existing policy?
• How can I find out more about schools to inform discussion and debate?

Researchers

Researchers play a critical role in helping educators, policymakers, and state agency staff members make good, defensible decisions. ZoomWV will provide you with valid, reliable, Family Education Right Protection Act (FERPA)-compliant information that doesn’t compromise student privacy. ZoomWV provides a user-friendly interface that will allow you to select parameters to run reports for a variety of data elements—and export the data into useable formats. With your research, you’ll help us determine what’s working and what needs work in West Virginia. With ZoomWV, you will have a vetted source of quality information to build studies and test theories to achieve that objective. Your technical expertise and our high-quality data can work together to put West Virginia at the forefront of improving education through rigorous research and practical, data-informed solutions.

Business Community

Understanding more about public education across the state can help the business community in many ways. ZoomWV is the single source of accurate, high-quality educational information that you can rely on for answers to your questions. At WVDE, we know that you rely on your employees for success – and a prepared workforce is necessary for that success. ZoomWV can help you

• understand more about the upcoming workforce
• learn about the skills students are acquiring

Public

ZoomWV provides information about education across the state through an easy-to-use, online portal, which promotes transparency and accountability of educational practices and outcomes. Find out more about the educational outcomes for the community where you live through the reporting tools available in ZoomWV.

Educational data is an asset that is essential to WVDE’s business and must be diligently protected. The Department works with staff and vendors to ensure that all legal and regulatory obligations are met—particularly for our data system.

ZoomWV leverages the Edvantage Data Warehouse (Edvantage) technology platform provided by Versifit Technologies. The Edvantage solution employs best security practices to ensure that both data at rest and data in transit are protected. To learn more about how the Edvantage technology secures the ZoomWV data, the ZoomWV Secure/Internal environment infrastructure, and the ZoomWV Public environment infrastructure, click the link below.

ZoomWV Edvantage Solution Network Security

Researchers play a critical role in helping educators, policymakers, and state agency staff members make good, defensible decisions. ZoomWV provides valid, reliable, Family Education Right Protection Act (FERPA)-compliant information that does not compromise student privacy.

To request education information not currently available through the ZoomWV public reports, please complete this form (see link below), providing as much information as possible to assist WVDE staff in determining the best way to respond.

Student data are available only in aggregate and/or de-identified formats. Pursuant to FERPA and WVBE Policy 4350, WVDE will not release student-level data or other personally identifiable information to external parties except when subject to formal research or data access/disclosure agreements legally binding all parties to specific terms and requirements.

As our education system evolves, the need for information evolves with it. From time to time, it may be necessary to propose collecting new or different information to help monitor progress and ensure that all students can achieve at high levels. When that happens, WVDE will post notices explaining the proposed changes and why they are needed. West Virginia citizens will have a chance to comment on any proposals for new additions to the education data system.

The West Virginia School Directory lists all public schools in the state by county. You can download all addresses in a comma delimited format, which can be used in any spreadsheet or database application that supports CSV files. You will also find a listing of non-public schools in the state.

Please click on the following link to view WVDE School Directory.

Every year, the WVDE publishes a compendium of information on a host of topics, including,

• Property taxes
• Public school support program
• Approved budgets – county boards of education
• Revenues and expenditures
• Student enrollment data
• Personnel data
• Salary data
• School data
• Student transportation data
• Child nutrition data

The following Source Books are currently available online:

• 2008 Source Book
• 2009 Source Book
• 2010 Source Book
• 2011 Source Book
• 2012 Source Book
• 2013 Source Book
• 2014 Source Book
• 2015 Source Book