Our Resource Library

Use this spreadsheet to stay apprised of when Cohort 5.0 meets during the 2023-24 session! Location, lodging and parking details are included in this resource.

As a means of advancing outcomes associated with Chesapeake Compassionate and Responsive Educational Supports (CARES), the Chesapeake City Cohort 3.0 team helped to shepherd and support the launch of Empower ColLabs. Within these communities of practice, division educators collaboratively engage in professional learning, address problems of practice, and share innovative strategies and resources to empower student-centered learning at scale.

As a member of this year’s cohort, the MPCS team elected to review the common language innovation framework from Cohort 1.0, centering on how this year’s team could revise the initial Inclusive Excellence to reflect Individual Excellence. It is from this that Cohort 3.0 created the Individual Excellence Framework, offering a continuum that focuses on self-reflection and high expectations for all.

The Isle of Wight Cohort 3.0 team’s goal was to explore the relationship needs of students and staff and to develop and pilot strategies that build relationships for students and staff, simultaneously.

To ensure Virginia Beach students are future-ready as outlined in the division’s Graduate Profile, this VALIN team identified a core focus: balanced assessment. To address this focus area, the team captured and communicated a brief history of balanced assessment in VBCPS, designed a curriculum audit tool to review performance assessment opportunities, developed consistent framework and expectations for VBCPS-curated works of substance, and captured artifacts from exemplary implementation to inform broader adoption.

Salem City has made progress on teachers administering performance tasks but sought to scale it up division-wide. To address this challenge, their team led a review of existing tasks, revision of any that needed adjustment, engagement in a gap analysis to identify areas where tasks were missing, and development of a K-12 map identifying tasks and a curriculum map that shows growth in the 5Cs across K-12. The link above shares a video of students piloting a new performance task in 5th grade.

The Roanoke County team continued advancement of the division’s C-Change Initiative by engaging in a process of developing and piloting the implementation of student-led conferences and portfolios that relate to the Roanoke County Profile of a Graduate.

Orange County Public Schools focused on Performance-Based Assessments as a VaLIN Cohort 3.0 Team. In particular, the team addressed Performance Assessment design, score calibration, and communication. On their website, they share artifacts including a presentation, podcast, and a few of the resources used in the project.

Greene County Public Schools continued their efforts to support Innovation Teams within the division toward the development and implementation of performance assessments. Their multi-phase process included defining a shared approach to balanced assessment, creating and implementing this approach in select grade levels, and engaging in grade level / department scoring events.

Fairfax County Public Schools has focused on assessment innovation through exploring how performance assessment and presentations of learning centered on growth within the competencies of our graduate profile -- termed POG POL -- can support a more balanced assessment approach for the division.

Building on the efforts that Amherst’s VaLIN 2.0 team advanced within instructional models that support deeper learning, this year’s efforts provided an opportunity to focus on infusing performance task administration as a means of balancing their assessment approach.

Participation in VaLIN’s Cohort 3 has fostered the need for Surry County Public Schools (SCPS) to explore multiple long-range advantages of employing innovative strategic plans that employ Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). The method includes examining multiple organizational theories that originated in the business community and subsequently adapting these theories to educational settings. Acknowledging the need to address historical inequities can serve as a driving force for change as it is imperative that school districts, like SCPS, begin to plan or lay out long term strategies to propel them to a higher level of success and status.

Social Studies teachers in Rockingham County Public Schools spent the last year working with Dr. Kathy Swan of the University of Kentucky and Dr. Emma Thacker of James Madison University in order to develop inquiry-based curricula based upon the principles and structure of the Inquiry Design Model (IDM). This directly correlated with our work in VaLIN 3.0 in working with our coach, Dr. Madeline Black. The video linked here features a special inquiry in 4th grade Virginia Studies where students wrote to Virginia civil rights pioneers.

The Suffolk team strove to promote coherence within their instructional initiatives, defining a systems approach rooted in continuous improvement models in order to close achievement gaps, build and sustain capacity, and meet the needs of all students. Their team was able to pilot this systematic approach with a multi-stakeholder focus on Tier 1 instruction and looks forward to using the process to address newly emerging needs in the years to come.

Over the course of participation in VaLIN 2.0, the Stafford team focused on beginning to outline what the SCPS-specific profile of a graduate / learner / educator would look like. Their efforts as members of Cohort 3.0 centered around creating an engagement strategy to bring all stakeholders to a shared understanding of the Stafford CSW Profile of a Graduate.

Powhatan’s DL421 initiative has driven division efforts toward deeper learning for the past several years. To advance this initiative’s efforts, the Cohort 3.0 team infused the division’s vision and values with more depth, identifying gaps in the implementation and addressing needs by creating the Integrity Matrix by grade level.

The HCPS team focused on mobilizing their community “from the inside out,” leveraging available accelerators to advance efforts with instructional leaders, school leaders and staff, and the broader community in aligning curriculum, refining implementation of the division instructional model, and increasing the depth and scope of alternative assessment models.

Cumberland County has been working on developing and aligning the 5C's rubrics PK-12. As the team continued on their journey, they defined division core competencies for each C and worked on how to support teaching to incorporate them in learning experiences. The team’s long-term goal is to provide feedback to students at all levels on the 5C's that foster growth as individuals and prepare them for their future.