During 2019, VASS members identified five primary areas of focus that will define organizational efforts for change and safeguard a relentless commitment to equity for all students. These primary areas of focus are: accountability, public education funding, Profile of a Virginia Graduate, social and emotional learning, and teacher shortage. In each of these areas, VASS members thoughtfully crafted goals, objectives, and strategies framing equity as the critical decision-making lens that will help educators and communities navigate the roadmap to success for all students. We invite you to explore this Blueprint for Equity and join education leaders across the Commonwealth in shaping the future.

Since 2011, the Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS) collaborated to develop two comprehensive guiding documents to help lead and shape the future of education in the Commonwealth. The first document, VASS’ Blueprint for Public Education, Bringing Reason to Reform, was adopted in November, 2011.  The second document, VASS’ New Blueprint for the Future of Public Education, was adopted in November, 2014.  Both blueprints outlined specific goals, objectives, and strategies in focus areas to ensure that Virginia’s public schools would be positioned to effectively and efficiently provide high quality learning to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world.

Since that time, VASS’ voices, through the blueprints, have affected positive changes to policies and legislation to improve the delivery of education services throughout Virginia.  Included in those changes have been the Virginia Department of Education launching the Virginia is for Learners initiative, which encourages a statewide focus on early learning experiences and a deeper approach to learning that emphasizes the application of content knowledge in the context of real world problem solving and skills essential to the future of work in a global economy. The Profile of a Virginia Graduate, Virginia’s newly adopted model of state and local accountability, reframed the high school experience to de-emphasize standardized testing and to expand exposure to life-changing career experiences that better prepare graduates for what comes next.

VASS’ members who served on the Blueprint Workgroup committees, along with the entire VASS membership consisting of 133 school division superintendents, and the superintendents of the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind and the Virginia Juvenile Services Education Program have worked diligently throughout 2018-2019 to create this document, VASS’ Blueprint for Achieving Equity in Virginia’s Public Schools.  Through this Blueprint, VASS enlists the Virginia Department of Education,  the Virginia State Board of Education, the Virginia General Assembly, the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, and all of the education associations and stakeholders in affirming that providing an equitable education for every student is the Commonwealth’s most valuable mechanism for reducing poverty, addressing racial disparity, building thriving communities, and sustaining economic advancement for all Virginians.