January 13, 2022
Media Contact:
Linda Finnerty, Communications Director
307-777-2053
linda.finnerty@wyo.gov
CHEYENNE - “I am honored, and deeply humbled, to announce that Virginia Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin has asked me to serve as Virginia’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. With a focused drive to lead on the front lines of educational transformation in this country, I have accepted. Therefore, I announce my resignation from the office of Wyoming State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Serving as State Superintendent for the last seven years has been the greatest honor and challenge of my life.
“Governor-elect Youngkin made educational transformation the centerpiece of his campaign. There is no more serious time to be in K-12 education governance than now, and Virginia is on the cutting edge of this battle for the future of our public schools. The work we will do to restore parents’ voices in education, push for innovation and student success, enhance school choice, and to eliminate political ideology from the classroom will set a new tone in Virginia and the nation. We have made great progress on these very items during my tenure in Wyoming.
“As State Superintendent, I made parent voice a priority by including parents in our policy making decisions, such as state standards review committees. We pushed through the Capitol inertia to pass historic Computer Science education requirements for K-12 public schools, greatly enriching and modernizing the curriculum delivered to our students. I have always been an advocate for school choice, and at times, chosen to place my own children in private school. I supported groundbreaking legislation during the 2021 session of the Wyoming legislature to substantially increase the opportunity for charter schools to form in our state. And when it comes to politics in the classroom, I’ve made my position crystal clear that partisan politics and radical theories should not be forced upon our children.
“I started my teaching career in the small town of Hulett, Wyoming, population 386. From there I have built a 25-year career in education and politics, serving as a national literacy consultant, an executive in state government, a policy advisor in the governor’s office, and now the elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I have served in leadership positions of national education organizations and led through COVID-19 with the highest percentage of students learning in-person in the nation. I am ready and more motivated than ever to engage at this critical time in our nation’s history serving alongside Governor-elect Youngkin as he leads Virginia through this historic opportunity to reset and restore public education with parents and students as the priority.”
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High-resolution photo of Jillian Balow
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