Bridging the Gap
Bridging the Gap: Learning Loss Recovery Plan
Bridging the Gap is a critical piece of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s effort to restore educational excellence to Virginia’s public schools. This initiative will spotlight some of the great programs, intervention strategies, and successes that school divisions across Virginia are implementing now, while supporting more innovative applications of data-driven instruction and increasing the capacity for every school to strengthen their relationships with parents and student caregivers.
This transformational approach will:
- Provide individualized student data reports so that every K-8 student, parent and teacher has all of a student’s assessment information in an understandable, actionable report. This information about student proficiency and learning loss empowers these critical stakeholders to make the best decisions to ensure every child is prepared for life.
- Ensure every student who is not on track has a Personalized Learning Plan that commits to a set of actions that teachers, parents, and students will take to address learning gaps. These Personalized Learning Plans will be developed and executed in partnership with teachers, parents, and students.
- Provide comprehensive training to teachers on how to communicate with parents and students about where a student is academically and the steps that will be taken together to get a student to grade-level proficiency.
Pilot Implementation
In school year 2022-2023, the Virginia Department of Education will partner with school divisions to pilot the implementation of Bridging the Gap. The transformational initiative is not possible without the partnership of committed school divisions. VDOE is thrilled to have twenty-five Bridging the Gap partner school divisions across Commonwealth:
- Amherst County
- Bristol City
- Caroline County
- Charlottesville City
- Chesterfield County
- Craig County
- Cumberland County
- Franklin County
- Fredericksburg City
- Gloucester County
- Hanover County
- Henry County
- Louisa County
- Lunenburg County
- Lynchburg City
- Martinsville City
- Nottoway County
- Page County
- Pittsylvania County
- Powhatan County
- Poquoson City
- Shenandoah County
- Southampton County
- Stafford County
- Williamsburg-James City County
This pilot year will provide partner school divisions with access to individualized student data reports, support developing a personalized learning plan model that meets their needs, and continual training from the VDOE and its partners. Participation in the pilot will not necessarily include an entire division; Education leaders can choose the schools or programs that may most benefit from participation.
We believe in partnerships and the power of collective expertise. VDOE will use this pilot year to collect and implement feedback from superintendents, school leaders, parents, and teachers so that the initiative is responsive to unique local needs. By the time students head back to school in 2023, every student, parent, and teacher should have access to these individualized student data reports, personalized learning plans as needed, and comprehensive teacher training.