Friends,

This week we’re shining a spotlight on some education resources for parents and children at home. Here’s what we’ve been working on:

First, this morning, I hosted my third Senate Session: Five Minutes with District 10. Today, I focused on education and answered questions you submitted. The constituent questions this week were great! 

If you’d like to send us a question for next week’s Senate Session, please submit them in advance through this form.

Next, I’m continuing to raise attention to the needs of parents, teachers, and students across our district to colleagues and, I assure you, my fellow legislators hear similar concerns within their districts. That’s why earlier this week, Governor Northam announced an expansion of Virtual Virginia.

Here are some of the latest resources the Commonwealth is providing to support distance learning for K-12 families and educators:

• If you are doing home learning right now, you can find courses, tech support, and help desk hotlines here. All Virginia public school teachers will be providing students with academic lesson plans and activities through June 30.
   
• 
Earlier this week, the VA TV Classroom program was launched in partnership with four Virginia public media stations: Blue Ridge PBS, VPM, WETA, and WHRO Public Media. These stations are working closely with the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) to create the programming that provides teacher-led, on-air instruction aligned with the Commonwealth’s academic standards for students who are unable to access other distance learning options.
   
• The VDOE has established the Continuity for Learning (C4L) Task Force consisting of more than 120 teachers, leaders, and collaborating educational partners across Virginia. They’re working together to implement the Virginia Learns Anywhere program, a hub of resources and recommendations to reinforce much-needed structure while also empowering individual teachers to support students in learning remotely.
   
• In an effort to increase equity and accessibility to educational materials during this crisis, Virtual Virginia will also ensure content can be loaded onto devices for use by students who don’t have sufficient internet access to support online learning.

Lastly, our monthly Town Halls kick off tonight and the topic is Mental Health Strategies: Coping with COVID 19. Please join us online TONIGHT, on Zoom, from 5 to 6pm. Our guest speaker will be Erin Lessin Mahone, author of If You Could See Me. We will discuss strategies for supporting children, loved ones, and ourselves during this period of crisis. You can still register for this important discussion here!

As always, we will continue to be in touch with more resources and information as we receive them.

In the meantime, if you’re a constituent and need to reach out to our office for support, please email [email protected].

- Ghazala

 

FOLLOW ON FACEBOOK

FOLLOW ON TWITTER

FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM