Education Leaders, Policymakers, Researchers Gather To Discuss Teacher Retention in Virginia

Education leaders, policymakers and academic researchers gathered at the University of Virginia for a summit to discuss teacher retention in Virginia.

Education leaders, policymakers and academic researchers gathered at the University of Virginia on Tuesday, October 23 for a summit to discuss teacher retention in Virginia. Hosted by the Office of the Secretary of Education and sponsored by UVA’s Curry School of Education and Human Development, the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, the day-long event took a similar shape to last year’s summit on teacher shortages.

“This convening will bring together state government policymakers, educational leaders from across the Commonwealth, and university researchers and enable them to engage in the kind of analysis and planning that truly shapes policy to make a positive difference,” said Secretary of Education Atif Qarni, prior to the event.

The overall focus of the summit was for stakeholder groups to collaborate and create policy recommendations in an effort to retain Virginia’s best teachers. Practitioners, policymakers, and scholars gathered and used the ideas and potential solutions generated from a pre-summit gathering held earlier this year.

Resources and video from the summit can be found on the Virginia Secretary of Education website. In conjunction with the summit, the UVA EdPolicyWorks research center launched a new website solely focused on policy in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Posted there are preliminary findings from an ongoing analysis of teacher retention and include a policy brief of the data and the full presentation of the data given at the summit.

“As we saw in last year’s convening that focused on the supply of new teachers, addressing critical issues like the teacher shortage and retention rest on a clear-eyed view of the data combined with informed discussions of promising ways to address our challenges,” said Bob Pianta, Dean of the University of Virginia Curry School of Education and Human Development.

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