Filling the Need
From the desk of President & CEO, Jennifer Stevens
It is surreal to me that we have been in the midst of a global pandemic for eight full months, and so much about how we live and work has changed because of it. The word “zoom” has taken on a whole new meaning – it may be how many of us spend time with our loved ones during the upcoming holiday season. Not unlike others, Virginia Ed Strategies has had to pivot with the ever-evolving impacts of COVID-19, but our ability to adapt to a negative situation has fortunately resulted in a number of positive outcomes for our organization.
Despite the major changes in the way students are being taught around the Commonwealth, the Rural Math Innovation Network (RMIN) is still going strong – in fact, we announced its expansion this past summer and we will be extending the grant period into 2021 to assist math teachers all over the state as they collaborate in this virtual network to solve their OWN problems of practice. As you might imagine, their immediate concern is with improving student engagement during remote instruction, so these teachers are engaging with professional development and resources geared toward virtual learning like Bitmoji classroom, Pear Deck for Google Slides, and Jamboard, among others.
When Governor Northam closed schools in March, we immediately began considering how our team could best assist K-12 divisions statewide, and it did not take us long to recognize that the work we had been doing for the past three years in RMIN had prepared us well to be a partner for the Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS) and its members. By mid-April, VASS and Virginia Ed Strategies began offering a series of virtual events on COVID-19-related topics, allowing school superintendents to gain new information from experts and discuss with one another in private breakout sessions. Since the pandemic made it impossible for VASS to hold its regular in-person ceremony to recognize the Virginia Superintendent of the Year, we facilitated their virtual SOTY ceremony via webinar with a live stream on Facebook to ensure that thousands of staff members and loved ones could view from each region of the Commonwealth. We have many more projects and events in partnership with VASS on the horizon that we will highlight in a future newsletter.
Our experience with virtual events, task force facilitation, and family engagement made us a strong partner for Halifax County Public Schools (HCPS) as well. When the 130+ page Recover, Redesign, Restart 2020 document was released by the state to provide written guidance for Virginia’s school divisions in developing plans for reopening schools for the 2020-2021 academic year, it was clear that there would be a critical need for community engagement as well as consistent, clear communication from schools to families and stakeholders in creating and implementing these plans. We knew that small, rural divisions, like Halifax County, would be at a disadvantage because resources are generally more scarce, and most do not have public relations, family/community engagement, or communications staff. Our partnership with HCPS has provided the technical assistance, outside expertise, and additional manpower at a time when it has been so desperately needed.
Prior to the pandemic, we were making great strides toward strengthening Virginia’s talent pipeline through business and education partnerships, and we were excited about getting new projects off the ground around the state. Unfortunately, when COVID-19 shut down schools and businesses in March, priorities rightly shifted away from this work while everyone attended to the urgent priorities at hand. While we have communicated our desire to assist in any way possible, we have also understood that our partners, in most cases, have not had the time or bandwidth to undertake or even continue non-essential projects over the past several months. We are proud of the fact, though, that we have been able to secure a number of signed partnership agreements to demonstrate the commitments of stakeholders to this effort, and we are working on a white paper to share what we have learned so far. This paper, still in draft form, is meant to document the challenges faced by schools, employers, and other stakeholders from every region of the Commonwealth in implementing talent pipeline programs in their communities and eventually be shared with leaders and funders to catalyze solutions. It is our goal to convene stakeholders in early 2021 to continue this work and not only develop solutions to the challenges already noted but begin to look at how we strengthen Virginia’s talent pipeline during and post COVID-19.
