The school division has begun moving forward with a series of initiatives and actions in response to the recommendations from our 2023 Instructional Practices Audit. Bellwether, the national nonprofit that conducted the audit, presented ACPS with five broad recommendations to address deficiencies in the areas of instructional tasks, adult learning, curricular resources, strategic alignment, and stakeholder engagement.

In support of the recommendations, and with the goal of better serving the needs of all ACPS students, three key changes are coming to the Department of Instruction beginning in the 2024-25 school year:

1. Our Lead Coaching model will shift to a Curriculum Coordinator model.
2. The Equity Specialists, currently assigned to the Office of Community Engagement, will transition to the Department of Instruction, wherein they will work directly with Curriculum Coordinators to review materials, assessments and resources through an equity lens to help ensure that we are meeting the needs of all students.
3. Supervision of Instructional Coaches will shift from the Department of Instruction to the Office of Professional Learning.

As part of this reorganization, we will reallocate some of our resources:

• We will reassign a vacant FTE (full-time equivalent) from the Equity Specialist team to the Office of Professional Learning as an Instructional Coach.
• A second FTE from the Equity Specialist team will transition to an Elementary Math Curriculum Coordinator to help support the new K-12 math standards that the Virginia Department of Education will introduce later this year. The Elementary Math Curriculum Coordinator will collaborate with the Secondary Math Curriculum Coordinator to support math instruction across the division.
• We will also repurpose a vacant Instructional Coach position as an Assistant Director of Professional Development to help support the shift in supervision of Instructional Coaches to Professional Learning and to help align our job-embedded professional learning experiences with both school and division-level needs.

If you have questions about these changes, please email Chandra Hayes.