New Partnerships

As part of the rebranding process, the staff and board of Virginia Ed Strategies adopted a vision statement that best encompasses the positive impact that the organization endeavors to make through its projects and services. This vision cites dedication to ensuring excellence and innovation in Virginia’s future workforce through effective K-12 education and business partnerships.

Over the last eight months, the Ed Strategies team has worked tirelessly to cultivate new partnerships with education, business, and economic development entities across the state to develop career preparation and work-based learning programs. More recently, Virginia Ed Strategies has also been working to address the issues that have arisen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Partners in Education

Photo courtesy of The Making Foundation

During the first annual Strategies Xchange in September 2019, Virginia Ed Strategies put out a call to organizations and districts with a desire to enhance existing or implement new innovative projects that focus on strengthening a community or region’s talent pipeline. The organization received 19 applications.

 Since the conference, Virginia Ed Strategies has entered into seven formal agreements. More are in development, but plans are currently on hold while schools and employers attend to the many issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The formal agreements currently in place include the following partners and focus areas: 

Cumberland County Public Schools – establish and build relationships with local business and industry, and to provide real-life, hands-on workplace learning experiences for students

The Making Foundation – looking to connect with employers, track student development, network, and secure guidance as well as funding to expand current model to other regions

Virginia Beach City Public Schools – develop and implement a program to prepare students for work-based learning and civic engagement activities mapped directly back to the industries and jobs identified as experiencing shortages in the Hampton Roads

Loudoun Education Foundation – create a sustainable and replicable education model for teaching computer science and computational thinking for all grades K-12 based on best practices learned from three computer science immersion public elementary schools in Loudoun County

Chesterfield County Public Schools – align students’ career interests and goals to CTE programming in order to strengthen relationships/pathways with the community college system, and to create a more prepared workforce to meet business industry/needs

Fredericksburg City Schools – form business – community partnerships to assist in creating functional pathways for students, help plan the expansion and timeline for additional pathways, and possibly connect K-8 to the 9-12 already established pipelines for work-based learning to start earlier in the division

New Horizons Regional Education Centers – create a regional Youth Apprenticeship Model through a business/education collaboration that provides a talent acquisition and retention model for youth transitioning from high school into employment or post-secondary opportunities

Partners in Leadership

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed many challenges across education with a lot of attention given to the obstacles faced by students and teachers as a result of this crisis. However, in their newest partnership with Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS), Virginia Ed Strategies is endeavoring to widen that focus to include school leaders and administrators.

 Through a series of webinars and developing plans to assist with a virtual networked improvement community geared towards superintendents, the organization is striving to help VASS address the biggest challenges school division leaders are facing during the COVID-19 crisis.

The initial webinar in a three-part series occurred April 14, 2020 and focused on three main topics which were identified in a pre-meeting survey completed by superintendents – equity in remote learning, continuity of instruction, and budgeting and finance. The second virtual meeting addressed concerns about stress and social-emotional well-being from the top down in school systems. In the upcoming weeks, Virginia Ed Strategies will work with VASS and their partners to focus on how superintendents can move forward through the crisis to begin planning for next school year.

Partners in Resource Sharing

Over the last several years, Virginia has made great strides in modernizing its public education system to ensure that students graduate high school prepared to succeed in an ever-changing economy. These efforts have resulted in the Profile of a Virginia Graduate, which describes the knowledge, skills, experiences and attributes that students must attain, and the 2019 launch of the Virginia is For Learners campaign – an initiative of the Virginia Department of Education, local school divisions, and many key partners aimed at connecting “the future of learning in the Commonwealth with the future of work in a global economy.”

In March of this year, a new entity was created to move these efforts forward. Serving as a network of non-profit organizations and schools of education across Virginia who share the collective goal of modernizing Virginia’s K-12 educational system, the Commonwealth Learning Partnership (CLP) aims to provide the education community with a repository of teaching materials and career enhancement programs as well as access to professional learning resources and trainings.

In late April, Virginia Ed Strategies became the first non-profit to sign-on as a “Partner Organization” of the CLP. In doing so, Ed Strategies has made a commitment to contribute directly to advancing the Profiles of a Virginia Educator, Classroom, and Education Leader and to partner with other like-minded organizations in guiding the trajectory of the CLP by determining its education policy goals and strategies for achieving them.