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Highlights
News from Across the Commonwealth
Congratulations to Gayton Elementary, Elko Middle, and Henrico High of Henrico County Schools for being recognized as heart-safe schools by demonstrating preparedness for sudden cardiac arrest by Project ADAM and the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU.
These schools met all 14 standards set by Project ADAM to become a heart-safe school, which include readily available automated external defibrillators with clear signage, a designated cardiac emergency response team, regular cardiac emergency training, and more.
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Elementary students at Meadow View and Stanleytown in Henry County Schools receive visits during breakfast time from student-athletes attending Patrick & Henry Community College. During the Breakfast Buddies program, athletes bond with students and offer them encouragement to continue working toward their goals. |
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Superintendent's Message
Dr. Lisa Coons, Superintendent of Public Instruction
All,
As we celebrate fall and Homecoming festivities across the state, I want to say a particular thank you to Pulaski County for including me in all of their celebrations last week. It felt wonderful to be so deeply included in a school community again. As superintendents and data leaders are working on implementing their division literacy plans, we are excited to see such focus on evidence-based literacy instruction across the state. Thank you to Isle of Wight and Norton City for letting me be a part of your early literacy classrooms over the past few weeks. Across Virginia, our elementary teachers are focused on delivering strong literacy instruction in every lesson; our reading specialists are developing student literacy plans based on Fall VALLSS’s results; our school leaders are creating time and space to support teachers; our schools are sharing student literacy progress with families; and our division leaders are ensuring that instructional materials, schedules, and intervention resources are available to support every student. We are blessed to be part of outstanding educational communities that are working to ensure every child can be successful.
Many of you are also currently listening to your communities and updating and implementing Cell Phone-Free Policies with your local school boards. Recently, a superintendent shared the following interview with Prince Harry and Jonathan Haidt with me. In this interview, Jonathan Haidt reminds us of the access children have through social media to unmonitored and dangerous content. Please see our additional resources to continue to support your families in helping our young people become cell phone-free and use our toolkit containing implementation resources for school leaders.
In addition, at the State Board meeting this week, we were proud to recognize Virginia’s National Blue Ribbon Schools, the 2024-2025 Exemplar Schools, and our award-winning foreign language teachers, including Virginia’s World Language Teacher of the Year. We also had an opportunity to learn from our school leaders in Norton City Schools, Hopewell City Schools, Brunswick County Public Schools, and Bath County Public Schools on their ALL In success.
We look forward to seeing many of you at the VASS Conference and the SW Virginia Leadership Conference next week.
In appreciation for all you do,
Lisa
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School Finance
Supporting America’s School Infrastructure Grant
Article: 2024-42-457
Audience: Superintendents, Facility Directors of Identified LEAs
Contact: Vijay Ramnarain, Director of Support Services, (804) 750-8715, Vijay.Ramnarain@doe.virginia.gov
The Virginia Department of Education was awarded a five-year $5,000,000 Supporting America’s School Infrastructure (SASI) grant from the U.S. Department of Education ending in November 2028. The purpose of this grant is to address a statewide need for comprehensive school building condition assessments to determine building conditions, school division needs, and cost efficiencies of an aging school building population.
The SASI grant will allow the VDOE to support Virginia’s school divisions through the development of a standardized facility condition assessment tool and centralized dashboard and database for storage of school facility condition data. The goal of creating this dashboard is to provide school divisions a standard template to collect, store, and generate relevant facility condition reports for their use. Training and support in the use of the building condition assessment tool and the dashboard will be available to all school divisions.
As a criterion of the grant, VDOE had to identify high-need school divisions through a competitive scoring process using economic factors of the localities. Building condition assessment assistance will be provided for the oldest high school in each of the selected high-need school divisions. This process identified 29 school divisions that can be designated as high-need. A short survey is being sent to these high-need school divisions to identify fifteen school divisions to receive initial facility conditions assessment assistance.
Collection Window Opening Soon: IDEA, 2024-2025 Proportionate Set-Aside Requirements
Article: 2024-42-460
Audience: Division Finance and Special Education Staff
Contact: Shalonda Lewis, Special Education Financial Data Specialist, Shalonda.Lewis@doe.virginia.gov
The VDOE is required by federal regulation to ensure all Virginia school divisions comply with Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, §300.133, and Appendix B to Part 300 - Proportionate Share Calculation. This mandates that each school division spend a proportionate amount of its Sections 611 and 619 allocations on providing special education and related services, including direct services, to students with disabilities who are home-schooled or parentally-placed in private elementary and secondary schools.
All school divisions are required to utilize the Special Education Proportionate Set-Aside Application through VDOE’s Single Sign-on for Web Systems (SSWS) portal to calculate and report its proportionate set-aside amounts for fiscal year 2024-2025. This is required even if the division has no eligible students with disabilities who are home-schooled or parentally-placed in private schools. The collection window for submission and approval will open on October 25, 2024, and close on November 22, 2024.
The VDOE’s Information Document and IDEA Proportionate Set-Aside Guidance Document provide additional information, including instructions on submitting the worksheet and the division superintendent’s access to the Superintendent Data Collection Approval Application. A pre-recorded training will be made available, and a Questions and Answers Session via Zoom will be held at a later date. Special Education Directors will receive an email containing the links to access these resources.
Title I, Part A and Title I, Part D Coordinators: Please Submit an Application A Revised Final 2024-2025 Title I, Part A, and Title I, Part D, Subpart2 Federal Allocations
Article: 2024-42-462
Audience: Superintendents, Directors, Title I, Part A, and Title I, Part D, Federal Program Coordinators
Contact: Tiffany Frierson, Title I Coordinator, Tiffany.Frierson@doe.virginia.gov and Gueringè Richardson, Title I, Part D Specialist Gueringe.Richardson@doe.virginia.gov
The revised final FY 2024 allocations differ from the original final FY 2024 allocations released in the Superintendent’s Newsletter #2024-36 due to corrections by several SEAs to their SY 2021-2022 State Per-Pupil Expenditure data and October 2023 State reported data on the number of children in locally operated institutions for neglected or delinquent children, foster homes, and families with incomes above the poverty line receiving assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (non-Census formula children), which impacted allocations to every state, including Virginia.
Title I, Part A and Title I, Part D coordinators must submit an application amendment based on the revised final FY 2024 allocation through the Online Management of Education Grants Award (OMEGA) application in the Virginia Department of Education’s Single Sign-On for Web Systems (SSWS).
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Early Childhood & Learning
Early Childhood Provisionally Licensed Teacher Incentive Program
Article: 2024-42-458
Audience: Superintendents, School Principals
Contact: Tiffanie Meehling, Associate Director of PreK Programs, tiffanie.meehling@doe.virginia.gov
The Virginia Department of Education is pleased to announce the Early Childhood Provisionally Licensed Teacher Incentive Program. This program provides funding of no more than $30,000 for each school division to provide financial incentives to provisionally licensed teachers in preschool programs operated by the school division. To qualify for the incentives, teachers must:
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Teach in preschool programs operated by the school division, including:
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Early Childhood Special Education Teachers
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Virginia Preschool Initiative Teachers
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Head Start Teachers employed by the school division
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Preschool Title I Teachers
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Locally Funded Preschool Classroom Teachers
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Hold an active, provisional Virginia teaching license
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Be actively engaged in taking coursework to satisfy licensure requirements reflected in the Code of Virginia § 22.1-299 (the license that is being sought must be preK-3, preK-6, or Special Education Early Childhood).
Additional information and how to apply may be found in the Program Application and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). A school division interested in applying must assign a primary contact and communicate directly with qualified teachers. The grant application is due on November 22, 2024. Official Grant Award Notifications will be issued to school divisions no later than December 13, 2024. One payment for the total amount of the grant award will be made to the school division by January 17, 2025.
New VQB5 Quality Profile Website – Now Live
Article: 2024-42-456
Audience: Superintendents, Directors, School Principals, Child Care Center Operators, Teachers, Non-teaching staff
Contact: Lucy Mitzner, Quality Improvement Specialist,VQB5@doe.virginia.gov
The VQB5 Quality Profile Website includes quality information for over 3,100 publicly-funded sites that participated in the VQB5 measurement and improvement system last year.
VQB5 Fall CLASS Observation Window – August 15-December 22
Article: 2024-42-461
Audience: Superintendents, Directors, School Principals, Child Care Center Operators, Teachers, Non-teaching staff
Contact: Lucy Mitzner, Quality Improvement Specialist, VQB5@doe.virginia.gov
VQB5 sites are required to complete two types of CLASS observations: local and external observations. These observations have different purposes and frequencies during the annual measurement and improvement cycle. Information and resources to support successful observation completion this fall can be found on the VQB5 Measuring Quality Interactions webpage.
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Virginia Board of Education
K-12 Mathematics and 6-12 English Textbook and Instructional Material Public Comment
Article: 2024-42-459
Audience: Superintendents, Directors, School Principals, Teachers
Contact: Anne Petersen, Director of STEM, Anne.Petersen@doe.virginia.gov
On October 24, 2024, the Virginia Board of Education received for initial review lists of recommended textbooks and instructional materials in K-12 Mathematics and 6-12 English for use in public schools.
Beginning October 25, 2024, the recommended mathematics and English textbooks will be available for a 30-day public review and comment period via the VDOE website. It is anticipated that the Board of Education will take final action on the recommended lists of K-12 Mathematics textbooks and 6-12 English textbooks at its December 2024 meeting.
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Additional Information
Virginia General Assembly Page Program and Classification of Absences Due to Participation
Article: 2024-42-455
Audience: Superintendents, Directors, School Principals, Teachers
Contact: Melissa Velazquez, Assistant Superintendent for Government Relations, Policy@doe.virginia.gov
The Virginia General Assembly Page Program is offered by the Senate and the House of Delegates each year during the Virginia General Assembly Session. Divisions should refer to the Regulations Governing Pupil Accounting Records on how to address student absences if participating in the program. A student may be counted as present if serving as a page if the local school board has approved the program. Further, providing local school board approval, no student participating in the page programs should be withdrawn from school.
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