The Gloucester County School Board held its annual retreat on Friday at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science campus at Gloucester Point. Among topics covered were elementary and secondary instruction and staffing.
Director of Elementary Education Dr. Amy Stamm and Director of Secondary Education Dr. Diron Ford provided an overview of academic achievement for students at all eight county schools, highlighting gaps in achievement between the entire student population and those with disabilities. State guidelines have schools currently focusing on reading and math achievement.
Gloucester County Public Schools is implementing next steps to help close the gap in these instruction areas. Programs designed to help these students include ALL IN Tutoring, Lexia Core5, Reading and Zearn Math.
Next steps also include principals observing classroom and student engagement at the other schools in the district to figure out what is working well and what they can implement in their own schools.
The instructional team is focused on closing gaps, making ALL IN Tutoring stronger and being more student centered in its approach.
School board chair Troy Andersen pointed out that reading starts at home and reaching out to parents to explain the importance of reading at home could help with these gaps.
Stamm said that involving families and finding ways to make reading fun for students are can help close these gaps.
“Parent involvement is huge,” said Ford.
Instructional conversation during the retreat also focused on career and technical education (CTE) courses. School board member Carlton Drew said that former students he has talked to have said they wished they had been able to take a course on home economics and life skills.
Andersen said that the skills that have been most beneficial to him in his career has been being able to speak well, read well and be someone people want to be around. CTE courses can help develop these skills for students.
Chief Human Resources and Compliance Officer Rachel Blankenship presented on staffing, vacancies and employee working conditions to the board.
During the 2022-2023 school year, employee turnover data (for licensed staff only) that was recorded showed that the top reasons for those leaving the district include family/personal considerations, retirement, relocation, employment outside of education, and accepting another job in a Virginia public school division.
Andersen said that employment turnover at GCPS would be a good topic for a joint meeting with supervisors to brainstorm ideas to make the county more attractive for younger people to stay and move to Gloucester.
Vladu said that growing a teacher base here would be a positive for the community. In regards to recruiting, Blankenship added that New York and Pennsylvania used to produce so many teachers that she was able to recruit from those places. Since they are no longer overproducing teachers, Blankenship has not been able to recruit from there.
“We do compete heavily with region two,” said Blankenship. GCPS operates in region three; however, region two opportunities are as close as York, Williamsburg and Newport News.
Other topics discussed at the retreat included special education, finance and operations. The board also took part in Title IX training.
The school board will hold its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday in the T.C. Walker Education Center auditorium, beginning at 6 p.m.