Your child’s state test in Virginia is the Standards of Learning assessment, and almost everyone just calls it the SOL. It is one of the oldest state-owned testing brands in the country, first given back in the late 1990s, and unlike states that rent a vendor’s test, Virginia writes its own standards and its own exams. That long history is now meeting a fresh controversy: the state is raising the reading and math cut scores, the passing marks that decide whether a score counts as proficient, in a push for more rigor that districts have publicly pushed back on. For you, that means a score of the same number may be labeled differently than it would have been in the past.
What SOL Looks Like: Format and Item Types
Virginia is an online-first testing state. Almost all students take the SOL in TestNav, the state’s online testing program, on a desktop, laptop, or tablet, and Virginia has delivered its tests this way for many years. Paper versions exist, but only when a student has a documented need for paper or when the required secure technology is not available.
The grades 3 through 8 reading and math SOLs are computer-adaptive, which means the test adjusts to your child’s answers as it goes, serving easier or harder questions based on how they are doing. The fall and winter Growth Assessments work the same adaptive way. One effect of this design is that your child may see a few questions below or above grade level, but the official 0 to 600 score is calculated only from the on-grade questions.
The questions come in two main forms: multiple-choice items and technology-enhanced items, which are interactive questions that go beyond filling in a single bubble. A typical grades 3 through 8 test runs a few dozen questions.
SOL tests are not timed. Your child is generally allowed the full school day to finish, and several tests have a natural stopping point partway through where a student can pause to use the restroom, get water, or eat lunch before continuing.
What the SOL Tests Are
The SOL program tests reading and mathematics in grades 3 through 8, science in grades 5 and 8, and history and social science through courses like Virginia Studies and Civics and Economics. In high school, testing shifts to end-of-course, or EOC, exams in subjects such as English reading, Algebra 1, Geometry, Biology, and Virginia and U.S. History. The tests are built directly on the Virginia Standards of Learning, the state’s own definition of what a student should know by the end of each grade or course.
Two groups take a different path. Students with the most significant cognitive disabilities take the Virginia Alternate Assessment Program, or VAAP. Multilingual learners take WIDA ACCESS to measure English proficiency, and this happens whether or not they also take SOL tests.
The Fall, Winter, and Spring Testing Rhythm
Here is something that surprises Virginia families: your child in grades 3 through 8 may take reading and math tests three times in a year. That is by design. On top of the familiar spring SOL, Virginia added shorter Growth Assessments in the fall and winter. These were required by state legislation and are built from the same pool of SOL items. Their job is to show progress across the year, not to replace the spring test. So if your child comes home in October talking about a reading test, that is the fall Growth Assessment, and the real SOL still comes in spring.
How SOL Scores Work
SOL scores use a scale that runs from 0 to 600. Currently, 400 is the minimum score for proficiency, and 500 marks advanced proficiency. For grades 3 through 8 reading and math, the achievement levels are Pass/Advanced, Pass/Proficient, Fail/Basic, and Fail/Below Basic. For science, history, and most high school EOC tests, the levels are Pass/Advanced, Pass/Proficient, and Fail/Does Not Meet.
The report you receive includes a redesigned parent summary and, on the back, a Student Detail by Question report that shows how your child did on each question and at what difficulty level. That per-question detail is genuinely useful for spotting a specific soft spot, like a struggle with fractions or with reading for evidence. Ask your school for it if it does not reach you automatically.
Why Virginia Is Raising the Bar
The current headline in Virginia is the cut-score change. After adopting new math and English standards, the state moved to raise the reading and math proficiency cutoffs. Supporters call it an honesty correction, arguing that the old bar labeled students proficient who were not fully ready for the next grade or for college and career. Critics, including some large districts, raised concerns about transparency, timing, and fairness, warning that a higher bar can suddenly relabel the same performance as not proficient. As the new cutoffs phase in, expect the numbers required to pass to sit somewhat higher than families remember. The practical takeaway for you is simple: if your child’s proficiency label slips even though their skills did not, the moving bar may be the reason, and it is worth asking the school to walk you through the current cut score for your child’s grade.
What SOLs Mean for High School Graduation
In elementary and middle school, SOL scores are mainly accountability and diagnostic tools, and they do not by themselves decide whether your child is promoted to the next grade. High school is different. Virginia ties passing certain EOC tests to verified credits, which are part of what a student needs to graduate. Because of that link, high school SOLs carry real weight for graduation planning. The good news is that Virginia allows retakes, and an expedited retake may be available for a student who passed the course and scored within a short distance of passing the test. If you have a high schooler, keep an eye on which EOC exams connect to verified credits so nothing is a surprise senior year.
Opting Out and Accommodations
Virginia does not use a formal opt-out right; it uses “parent refusal” language instead. A standard refusal generally means your child is not penalized academically for skipping the test, though the refusal can show as a zero on the testing record, and for credit-bearing high school tests it can affect graduation timing. Because the exact handling is set locally, confirm the current policy with your division before deciding.
Accommodations are organized into four groups: timing and scheduling, setting, presentation, and response. Depending on the test and your child’s documented plan, these can include flexible scheduling, a separate setting, read-aloud or audio for many math and science tests, calculators, English dictionaries for English learners, and speech-to-text. Read-aloud on the reading test itself is more restricted and is usually tied to a specific documented need. Accommodations flow from an IEP, 504, or EL plan, so the decision happens in those meetings, not on test day.