Local School Superintendents speak at Sojourners
May 27th, 2010 by adminDr. Rosa Atkins, Superintendent of the Charlottesville Public Schools and Dr. Pamela Moran, Superintendent of Albemarle County School Division spoke to an enthusiastic group after the morning worship service on Sunday, May 16th, sponsored by the Racial Justice Social Action Group. This was a return engagement for both superintendents, a practice that has been in existence for a number of years. At least once each year, they have come to update Sojourners on what is happening in each school system.
They each talked about the impact of the budget cuts on their systems. It seems that Albemarle will be “hit harder” than the city of Charlottesville resulting in lost of some teachers and some programs. Classroom sizes will increase by one child in grades above 4th in the county.
Both Drs. Atkins and Moran spoke about the impact of technology on the world of education today. We must be able to expose students to the rapidly changing pace of technology and prepare them to explore and advance in “out of the box” thinking. Advances have been made in narrowing the much talked about achievement gap between black and white students. The importance of early childhood education, starting with classes for three years olds was felt to be the most important step that can be taken to change achievement gap statistics.
To the question about what can we, as citizens and Sojourners, do to support the school systems, the need for a strong consistent and constant education advocacy group was promulgated. The importance of public education needs to be frequently at the forefront of discussions in the community and regular support at times other than budget hearings or teacher cut-backs. The Education Action Group resulting from the Dialogue on Race was mentioned as a possible beginning of an advocacy group.
We thank Drs Atkins and Moran for their willingness to come to us on a Sunday morning and look forward to hearing from them again next year or before.