To ramp up teacher pipeline, school division joins partners to create pathway for teacher licensure

The Warren County School Board during its August 17 meeting voted unanimously to allow Warren County Public Schools (WCPS) to enter a partnership with James Madison University and Laurel Ridge Community College to provide its paraprofessional employees with the opportunity to become licensed teachers.

WCPS Director of Personnel Shane Goodwin outlines the school division’s partnership plans to help put employees on a path to teacher licensure in cooperation with two higher education institutions.

“Providing every student in Warren County Public Schools with an exceptional teacher is imperative,” said WCPS Director of Personnel Shane Goodwin in justifying the proposal to board members. “To accomplish this mission, we need to develop a local pool of licensed teachers.”

Specifically, WCPS will partner with James Madison University (JMU) and Laurel Ridge Community College to provide WCPS paraprofessionals with a chance to become licensed teachers in the areas of early childhood education, elementary education, or special education, Goodwin told School Board Chair Kristen Pence, Vice Chair Ralph Rinaldi, and board members Antoinette Funk, Andrea Lo, and Melanie Salins.

JMU will fund the so-called Grow Your Own program, which includes a scholarship for service loan forgiveness when a paraprofessional earns licensure and commits to teach for two years in the Grow Your Own school division where he or she was employed as a paraprofessional, said Goodwin, and JMU will pay the Laurel Ridge tuition and fees according to the same agreement of loan forgiveness for service where they are employed.

“The Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] will enable us to create a pathway to licensure for all currently employed paraprofessionals who wish to become early childhood, elementary education, or special education teachers,” Goodwin said. “We see the MOU as a great partnership opportunity for our employees and ultimately for our students.”

The MOU is contingent upon JMU’s receipt of sufficient Commonwealth of Virginia Budget Appropriations for the Grow Your Own program. The MOU term is August 15, 2022, to August 14, 2023. Goodwin said the opportunity has been advertised to WCPS paraprofessionals and currently six employees are ready to begin work at JMU and 14 WCPS employees are ready to begin work at Laurel Ridge.

WCPS Finance Director Robert Ballentine

The board also unanimously approved a new Clerk of the Warren County School Board and a new Deputy Clerk of the School Board.

Due to the resignation of board clerk Robert Ballentine, who continues in his position as WCPS finance director, Timothy Grant will take on those duties. Grant is also the technology director for WCPS.

At the same time, Douglas Stefnoski has been approved to be appointed as the Deputy Clerk of the Board in a term that runs this month and expires on December 31. Stefnoski is also the WCPS instructional technology coordinator.

Board Chair Pence thanked Ballentine “for all the years that he served as Clerk of the Board.” Ballentine, who was present for the work session, received a round of applause.

In other action, the board unanimously approved a recommendation made by WCPS Assistant Superintendent for Administration George “Buck” Smith to make October 10 a Parent-Teacher Conference Day that will run from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. The change replaces the scheduled Professional Workday that was scheduled for October 10.

“The current 2022-23 school calendar does not include an in-person Parent/Teacher Conference,” Smith explained. “With the importance of increasing Family Engagement, an in-person Parent-Teacher Conference is recommended.”

Smith also requested approval from the School Board to purchase the point-of-sale software and hardware support package from Data Business Systems Inc. in the amount of $18,370.28 for the Food and Nutrition Program. He said the system is used in all WCPS cafeterias. The program automates sales activity, meal and eligibility counts, and provides data for state and federal reports, while the software processes cafeteria sales, tracks items sold, generates reports, and provides information on meals purchased, Smith said.

“This system also allows parents to put money on students’ lunch accounts through a secure Internet connection,” he added, “and parents are able to monitor their child’s purchases for breakfast or lunch using the online portion of the program.”

The board unanimously approved the recommendation to purchase the point-of-sale software and hardware package from Data Business Systems.

The School Board also voted to hold a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. on August 24 to act on which bid to accept for the planned renovation project at Leslie Fox Keyser (LFK) Elementary School. The bid opening for the LFK renovations project was held on August 10 and two bids were received from LCW Construction and Taft Construction.

Additionally, the School Board unanimously approved the WCPS 2022-2023 Crisis Management Plan, which aims to provide staff with guidelines and pre-planned responses to various emergencies or crisis situations.

WCPS Director of Special Services Michael Hirsch outlined the Crisis Management Plan, pointing out that it is essentially a living document that gets updated as needed. “It’s not a once-a-year thing to plan for crises,” he said. “A crisis can impact a single building or the entire school division. The most crucial consideration in dealing with a crisis is our students’ and staff’s health, safety, and welfare.”

The plan includes: school division procedures, responsibilities and contacts, as well as currently trained staff in first aid and CPR; guidelines for various emergency situations such as lockdown, bomb threat, fire and death; a Medical Emergency Response Plan that includes sample procedures for a variety of incidents, such as diabetes, seizures, bee stings, and allergies; and school-based plans and procedures such as contact lists, building blueprints, and evacuation procedures for non-ambulatory students.

Four new additions to the Crisis Management Plan are the Safety Audit Committee, an Incident Command Structure Training and Roster, “Secure the Building” or “Soft Lock-down” procedures, and a standing order with the Virginia Health Department to provide stocked albuterol at each school—WCPS currently has epinephrine stocked in all schools, Hirsch said.

Work Session
The work session portion of the meeting included reports from Smith on Facilities, Child Nutrition, and Transportation operations, as well as an instructional update from WCPS Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Heather Bragg.

WCPS Director of Transportation Aaron Mitchell points out special features of the new van.

WCPS Director of Transportation Aaron Mitchell also took School Board members outside to view one of the school division’s newly purchased (with federal grant funds) state-of-the-art vans, which will be used to transport students with disabilities who are in a wheelchair in a safer way.

Hirsch also told the board that he intends to request during a September board meeting that a $5,000 stipend be approved for each WCPS Instructional Assistant who is a certified nursing assistant (CNA).

Currently, there are three such CNAs in WCPS, Hirsch said, and they serve students with a variety of academic, behavioral, and medical needs.

“Our school nurses and classroom staff work with parents and community-based professionals to implement student health care plans on a daily basis,” he said. “In some cases, students require support all day and an instructional assistant is assigned to carry out these assigned duties, which can include toilet etiquette, specialized feeding, stretching and exercise, and much more.”

With the ability to be reimbursed by the state through Medicaid billing, Hirsch plans to propose the stipend for an Instructional Assistant who has an active CNA certification and is assigned to one of these roles. There will be no local cost, he said.

In his personnel report, Goodwin told the School Board that the Virginia Department of Education has officially listed critical shortage positions at the state level, including those for Prek-6 teachers, Career & Technical Education teachers, and teachers in 6-12 math, secondary science, secondary English, and Health and PE, among others.

The state list means that localities like WCPS now may hire retirees to fill such positions without them losing their state retirement benefits, said Goodwin, who noted that WCPS last year had almost 120 resignations.

Goodwin said he’s currently compiling data on why they exited in an electronic format to present to board members and noted that WCPS “are not the only folks facing an exodus from the profession.”

WCPS this year still has 19 open positions as of August 17 — six are IA positions; 11 are teacher positions; two are maintenance positions.

WCPS Superintendent Dr. Chris Ballenger. The last approximate one hour of the almost four-hour work session revolved around Ballenger (above) and WCPS Finance Director Robert Ballentine discussing the fiscal year 2023 budget for WCPS. Part of the summary is provided on the slide.

Among other information, Ballenger also pointed out that the school division will make a future budget transfer request to the Warren County Board of Supervisors to provide the five percent salary increase and the $1,000 bonus to all WCPS employees. He said some of these funds will need to be transferred from the Instruction category to other categories.

Prior to adjournment, the School Board convened a closed meeting to discuss an employee personnel issue.

Click here to watch the Warren County School Board Work Session on this exclusive Royal Examiner video.