Governor Glenn Youngkin said on Monday that all 131 school divisions in Virginia have finished their ALL in VA plans. These plans include high-intensity tutoring, reading education, and steps to get more kids to go to school.
The office of the Governor said that in September, Governor Youngkin told all school divisions that they needed to quickly make ALL in VA comprehensive plans that were specific to their divisions and took strong steps to make sure that their students got the academic help they needed to make up for lost time and improve their attendance and performance in school.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin said, “I’m glad all of Virginia’s school divisions listened to my call to act quickly and firmly to help our students recover from the COVID-19 pandemic learning loss.” “I’m glad that today every school division has taken on that challenge and is determined to get our students back on track in school.”
In the state budget, Governor Youngkin and the General Assembly set aside $418 million in flexible funding for Virginia schools to help students who have lost their learning get it back and to carry out the Virginia Literacy Act.
The Governor’s office said that school divisions have come up with creative ways to use best practices and provide high-intensity tutoring to their students. For example, divisions have planned to help their students by holding sessions before and after school, and changing school schedules during the day, and on the weekends.
Secretary Aimee Guidera said, “When Virginians decide to make sure every student gets the help they need, kids do great.” “This milestone is a meaningful testament to the leadership and commitment of our school divisions and community volunteers to students and families.”
Chief of Public Instruction Lisa Coons said, “Our school divisions have been thoughtful in their planning and have really looked at the unique challenges their students and communities face.” “They have made useful plans to help their students catch up and move ahead, giving them the strong academic base they need to get back on track and be successful.”
The Governor’s office said that Virginia kids are still having a hard time after the pandemic. Virginia’s 2022-2023 Standards of Learning (SOL) scores show that our students are still struggling to meet reading and math proficiency benchmarks and have lost a lot of the knowledge they gained during the pandemic. These scores are lower than the previous year’s results and show that student achievement is still well below what it was before the pandemic.
- Reading scores are still lower than they were before the plague. Between the school years of 2021-22 and 2022-23, there was no change in the students. More than half of students in third through eighth grade failed or are likely to fail their reading SOL test in 2022–2023.
- Math scores are still lower than they were before the plague. Even though kids got better between 2021-22 and 2022-23, their math pass rates are still 15% lower than they were before the pandemic. As of 2022–23, almost two-thirds of students in grades 3–8 either failed their Math SOL test or are likely to fail it.