Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an Executive Directive today at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford County, cutting administrative red tape for schools trying to fill a glut of vacant teaching positions.
Youngkin’s order will make it easier to get teachers in classrooms, allowing them to work with obtaining their licenses while upholding educational standards. The order also makes it easier for retired teachers who want to return to the classroom, educators who recently moved to Virginia, and those switching careers to begin teaching to ease the state’s teacher shortage.
The state’s lack of educators comes on the heels of two years of classroom closures at public schools that harmed students socially and academically, as outlined by the past two years of Virginia Standards of Learning test scores.
“The teacher shortage, combined shortage with learning loss, and the lesson we know, when a student is in a classroom with a teacher, in person, that is where the magic happens,” Youngkin told a crowd of state and local school administrators.
A new federal report shows that the nationwide shutdown of schools during the coronavirus pandemic led to historic student learning losses. The Department of Education released data Thursday showing that national test scores declined the most in decades.
Mr. Tom Coen’s AP government class surrounded Youngkin as he signed the executive order. Public school divisions across the U.S. suffer from teacher shortages as students return to classrooms without pandemic-era social distancing, masking requirements, for the first time in two years.
The governor was flanked today by Virginia Education Secretary Amiee Guidera and the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Barlow, who announced the Bridging the Gap program to address learning loss experienced during the school building closures issued by Gov. Ralph Northam.
The program will use individualized data plans produced for children in kindergarten through the eighth grade to identify where they’re failing academically. Sixteen school divisions, including Stafford and Caroline, counties in our region, with nearly 170,000 students, will participate in the pilot program, which will eventually be rolled out across the state.
“We know our children aren’t succeeding at the level we want them to,” said Guidera. “The data in these profiles will be used as a flashlight, not as a hammer, to create a plan to correct learning loss.”
Youngkin said Virginia kept students out of classrooms for too long and noted the damage to students across the board, from poor students, those with learning disabilities, blacks, Latinos, and those learning English as a second language all suffered disproportionately.
During a roundtable discussion Youngkin held on learning today at the high school, teachers said they need more parents to be involved with their children’s learning. Youngkin campaigned on parental involvement with children.
Rising inflation has meant some of the area’s poorest families have mothers and fathers working multiple jobs to pay the rent and keep food on the table, preventing parents from taking a more active role in their children’s education.
Potomac Local News pressed the governor on the issue, and he told us:
“I hear it every day. And so our first step we’re taking on is to get taxes down in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the $4 billion tax cut package that we just got done and the latest budget is hugely important. One of our next big initiatives is to, in fact, address affordable and accessible housing across the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
“We are in a crisis moment where people don’t think they can afford to live where they live. And so we started a process of assessing the issue. And when we present our budget in December, we are going to have a comprehensive approach because I think the American dream of owning a home in Virginia should be attainable and accessible to people. And we got a lot of work to do there.”
Gov. Glenn Youngin (R)
The Virginia Department of Education released the most recent round of SOL scores on August 18. We reported the results, breaking them down for the multiple jurisdictions we cover.
Poor, minority and disabled students continue to underperform. Overall, the results were mixed and nowhere near the achievements seen in 2019, before the pandemic.
In Stafford County, where the governor made today’s announcement, here’s the breakdown:
Stafford County Public Schools students are showing a mixed bag for SOL scores. Overall, reading scores are up five points in reading to 73%, writing is down two points to 54%, math is up by 11 points to 61%, and science is up seven points to 65%.
- For economically disadvantaged students, scores for reading were up nine points to 59%, but reading fell from 41% to 39%.
- Math scores jumped 14 points to 46%, and science nine points to 46%.
- In 2019, Stafford scored 79% in reading, 84% in math, and 82% in science.
- The school division has just over 30,000 children.
Stafford County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Thomas Taylor has been on the job since December and promised to make reversing learning loss a top priority.
“Community, transparency, and teamwork,” said Taylor, who sat next to the governor during the roundtable discussion to introduce the Bridging the Gap program. “We need to own the fact that things didn’t go so well the past few years. Last year, in particular, was very bumpy for our students, teachers, and our parents. We have to know where we are to know where we’re going.”
