Hear how VPOST is working for you during the pandemic, and share with us!

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Subject: Hear how VPOST is working for you during the pandemic, and share with us!

VPOST coordinates resources and informs decision making that affects our field by working with leaders in various sectors of government, education, and business. During the time of COVID-19, this representation and advocacy are more critical than ever, and we wanted to share some of our efforts.

Taskforces and Leadership Meetings

Blaire Denson, Executive Director of VPOST, has been appointed to two task forces focused on the future of education in Virginia. The first is the Return to Schooling COVID-19 Recovery Taskforce, led by Dr. James Lane, Superintendent of the Virginia Department of Education. The primary focus is on identifying the challenges that will be presented when formal schooling resumes, and the most beneficial way to address them. In a recent NPR article on the future of school re-openings, Dr. Lane states, "I also think that there is a need for us to focus on social and emotional learning for students, and not only how we can provide the academic support, but how can we provide the mental health support and the wraparound supports for students when they come back, to help them recover and bring back that safety net of schools." In addition to student well-being, priorities include staff support, recruitment and retention, finance and operations, and learning equity.

Blaire is also engaged with The COVID-19 Crisis Support Virtual Meeting Series, sponsored by the Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS), Virginia Ed Strategies, and the Commonwealth Learning Partnership. This meeting allows for peer-to-peer collaboration of Virginia's superintendents and subject matter experts, like VPOST, to share issues, concerns, problems, and potential solutions.

Nationally, we are active in the 50 State Afterschool Network meeting, which is hosted by the Mott Foundation. As the representative from Virginia, VPOST can share challenges and strategies with other afterschool state networks across the country. At this moment, one area of focus is the future of summer learning.

From the Field

Our work with various leadership to coordinate resources and inform decision making, of course, depends on hearing directly from the field in Virginia. Our Professional Development and Quality Coordinator, Christine Jones-Monaccio, has turned her focus towards not only curating pandemic response information and resources, but hearing the challenges, strategies and solutions that are organically emerging.

Back in March, we invited programs to complete a short questionnaire letting us know the state of their program. We received great responses and were able to relay this information to some of our legislators during the Afterschool for All Challenge. As the situation has shifted away from triaging toward fostering learning and connection, our Leadership Advisory Council, Pandemic Response Committee is working on developing a new questionnaire for the field. Be on the lookout for that when it becomes available later this month. We want to hear from you!

There is so much to learn from one another, which is why we have launched our Program Spotlight series, in which each week we are featuring a program in Virginia and shedding a behind the scenes look at how they are responding to the crisis. We hope these stories inspire you and help you feel connected in a time of increased isolation. Share your story with us!

Last, we are continually updating our Pandemic Response Resource page on our Resource Exchange sub-site, with content curated for the Virginia community.

As always, we hope you are well and encourage you to reach out to the VPOST team for support. Thank you for all you do!

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Subject: Hear how VPOST is working for you during the pandemic, and share with us!