Henrico Schools will recruit teachers for ‘ALL In VA’ plan rather than outside tutors, superintendent says

Instead of enlisting a large number of outside tutors to help implement Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s ‘ALL In VA’ plan, Henrico Schools mostly will use its own teachers to provide “in-house” tutoring, HCPS Superintendent Dr. Amy Cashwell said at a Nov. 9 school board meeting.

Henrico Schools officials submitted the school division’s ALL In VA plan to the Virginia Department of Education Oct. 18 and it was approved on Oct. 27, authorizing the division to receive $17.49 million from the state. HCPS’s plan will employ teacher volunteers to tutor students mainly during the school day during teacher planning periods; teachers will be compensated for making up planning time after hours.

“The person who can provide the most impactful tutoring is the teacher who works most directly with the students, so we started first with that preference and offered funding to our schools to be able to pay staff to provide the tutoring,” Cashwell said. “Our plan doesn’t call for using a third party contractor to come in and tutor at this time.”

Youngkin announced the ALL In VA plan on Sept. 7, saying the statewide initiative was designed to address learning loss due to COVID and improve literacy with high-intensity tutoring, as well as target chronic absenteeism. The plan mainly focuses tutoring efforts on students in grades three through eight who failed their SOL tests or demonstrated a risk of failing.

Each school division was required to submit its ALL In VA plan to the VDOE this fall to receive funding for the initiative. The plan requires school divisions to spend 70% of funds on tutoring and learning loss, 20% on implementing the Virginia Literacy Act, and 10% in response to chronic absenteeism. To align with requirements, Henrico Schools will spend $12.25 million on tutoring, $3.5 million on literacy, and $1.75 million on combating absenteeism.

Staff members from HCPS’s Division of School Leadership, Division of Learning, and Budget and Finance Division collaborated, with input from school principals, to create the plan, according to HCPS spokesperson Eileen Cox. These staffers also created a guidance document and template for principals to help them tailor the plan to their individual schools and building needs.

Since Henrico Schools already uses some outside tutors – including university instructors and retired teachers – principals still can recruit non-staff tutors if necessary and should continue to use the outside tutors they already have, Cashwell said. However, current staff will be HCPS’s preferred source for the ALL In plan tutoring.

“It’s happening in-house at our schools based on plans our school teams developed and does leverage at times, like I said, maybe retirees or employees who come in as volunteers, but largely are our own staff and teachers working with students with whom they’re familiar and have a relationship with,” Cashwell said.

Schools can also offer tutoring before or after school as well as during school, Cashwell said, and HCPS will work to fund transportation for students attending tutoring outside of school hours. Teachers who tutor before or after school will be compensated for their time.

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SOL results for the 2022-2023 school year showed that Henrico students grades three through eight fell behind the Virginia average for SOL tests in reading, writing, and mathematics – although the 17% pass rate on the eighth grade English Writing SOL can be explained by a change in assessment participation, according to HCPS Assistant Director of Communications Ken Blackstone.

Particularly low SOL pass rates included Henrico’s 40% pass rate on the sixth grade Mathematics SOL (compared to the state pass rate of 61%) and 47% pass rate on the eighth grade Mathematics SOL (compared to the state pass rate of 60%). Henrico students also had a 62% pass rate on the seventh grade English Reading SOL while the state pass rate was 70%.

During the next few weeks, schools will finalize their individual tutoring plans, Cashwell said.

“Plans are still underway,” she said. “I would just say if any family has a question, please reach out to your teacher or your school because plans are unique to each building.”

Henrico School Board Vice Chair and Varina District member Alicia Atkins also emphasized that implementing the ALL In VA plan at each school would take time and that all of the funding would not be immediately available.

“Just because we have this money, it doesn’t automatically mean in the next 72 hours that it’s available,” she said. “This is going to take some time. It’s going to take a tremendous amount of effort. Even with offering the opportunity to our staff, it does not equate to being able to provide the services to everyone.”

Cashwell also noted that HCPS already conducts remediation and acceleration tutoring, with ALL In VA simply being an expansion of tutoring opportunities.

“While much tutoring has been taking place and is taking place, ALL In is an expanded version of that,” she said.

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Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s Report for America Corps member and education reporter. Her position is dependent upon reader support; make a tax-deductible contribution to the Citizen through RFA here.