This story was reported and written by VPM News.
Another Virginia teacher residency grant was terminated by the federal government earlier this year — and hasn’t been reinstated like VCU’s.
The Isle of Wight School Board was granted the five-year, $8.5 million grant last fall to expand the number of licensed teachers and school leaders across three Tidewater-area school districts in partnership with Norfolk State University.
According to Lynn Briggs, director of media relations for the Isle of Wight school district, only $2.1 million had been disbursed prior to the termination notice that stated the grant was “deemed to be inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, Department priorities.”
Briggs said the news was disappointing.
“There was a lot of promise when we received this grant, and we were excited about what it would allow us to do,” she said.
The proposal aimed to support 200 teaching residents working towards certification at NSU in exchange for their commitment to working in a hard-to-staff school in the area for a minimum of three years.
Okema Branch, chief academic officer for Suffolk City Public Schools, said the school divisions specifically designed this program to create accessible licensure pathways in critical shortage areas: special education and pre-K through 6th grade.
“The cancellation of the grant canceled opportunities for us in these areas to build a pipeline,” Branch said.
According to the grant application, the HBCU would provide reduced tuition to participants — and a cost-of-living stipend would also be awarded. According to Branch, the stipend offered would’ve been $10,000 each year.
Now, those financial supports are gone.
The grant wasn’t covered by recent litigation that resulted in the reinstatement of VCU’s teacher residency grant, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
“They do not fall into the membership of our organizations so they are not covered by the lawsuit,” Tyler Pointer, AACTE spokesperson, told VPM News.
That organization said in a statement that the grant reinstatements still stand — despite a recent US Supreme Court response to other litigation challenging the terminations.
The three Tidewater school districts submitted an appeal letter to the federal government last month, challenging the grant’s cancellation.
“This grant has been instrumental in working toward advancing educator preparation, improving student outcomes, and addressing critical teacher shortages in our school communities,” the letter reads.
“The termination of this funding will have devastating consequences for our teacher and leader preparation programs, partner school districts, higher education partners and the students they serve. What’s more, the discontinuation of this grant jeopardizes the preparation of hundreds of new teachers and leaders who are committed to serving schools in our consortium.”
Meanwhile, students enrolled at Norfolk State University and the University of Maryland expecting support as part of the grant are now being told the funds are no longer available.
Another component of the grant helped support aspiring principal residents at Maryland: Right now, there are 12 students in this program from the three Virginia school divisions, according to Briggs.
Briggs said those residents are all in the middle of coursework and will soon be faced with a dilemma of whether or not they can afford to continue the one-year program: “They can still continue with the program, if they would like, but their expenses will not be covered through the grant.”
Meanwhile, residency programming at Norfolk State was just about to begin. The application process was underway, and Branch said an orientation session was planned to kick off later this month. Classes would’ve started in May.
The grant termination is also directly impacting staff: Briggs said her district hired an individual to administer the grant a week before it was terminated.
They had to move them into another unfilled vacancy. Now, instead of administering the multi-million dollar grant, they’re working as an assistant principal in support of a few schools in the district.
“That was very unfortunate,” Briggs said. “They moved from another division to come here, and then this news breaks. That was very difficult.”
A spokesperson for NSU did not respond to questions by deadline about any impacts to the university and students.
'It’s a little dagger'
One major goal of the grant was to help prospective teachers already working as instructional assistants within school districts become fully licensed.
“We were looking forward to having some of our current employees go through that opportunity and be able to welcome them back to the division as full-blown teachers,” Briggs said.
Since the pandemic, Briggs said Isle of Wight has seen a decrease in the number of job candidates. Now, she said, they’re having to look at additional ways they can attract people to work there.
“We are a small division; we are considered fairly rural,” Briggs said. “We don’t have the name recognition of some of the bigger divisions around us.”
She said a challenge further complicating the situation is that some teachers are leaving mid-year — creating situations in which the remaining teachers are asked to cover more classes.
“It’s a full day with no breaks for them when they are having to take on that extra class period,” Briggs said.
Branch is remaining optimistic about future opportunities to support educators in her district – even without this federal grant.
“Education is underfunded at all levels,” Branch said. “So in education, we do what we have to do to help our students achieve, our staff meet and exceed outcomes for themselves. We do what we have to do. And we are not stopping. This is a fork in the road. Yes, it's a little dagger, but it didn't kill us or take us out, so we must press forward.”
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