Dear Colleagues:

One of my first decisions as the new superintendent for Albemarle County Public Schools was to move the Wisdom Table into my office. It has been there ever since.

For many years, this modest, rectangular wooden table occupied a hallowed place in my grandad’s home in South Carolina’s Lowcountry. I remember it with great reverence, because it was where I would sit down with my grandfather to work out the youthful problems and challenges that complicated my early life. Answers soon revealed themselves.

It was around that table that I became an educator.

Among the most valuable lessons from our many sessions was the inescapable conclusion that knowledge, conversation, collaboration, and deep appreciation for family and community could make the future better. That naturally leads me to the one place in any town that most resembles my Wisdom Table, where all of these qualities are developed and strengthened—our public schools.

And this is a great time to be in our schools. We are closer than we ever have been to meeting challenges that have long been unresolved and that will matter a great deal to our future.

2017 marks the 150th anniversary of the National Center for Education Statistics, and guess what the pressing issue was in one of its earliest reports. In 1870, the organization wrote about the limited schooling available for newly freed black students, creating an achievement gap whereby 80 percent of black adults and 20 percent of white adults could not read or write their own names.

The achievement gap has only gotten wider in the ensuing years, but today, we have made it a high priority to finally achieve equity and excellence in our schools. And we have a plan that, with your help, will do just that. We also are further along in aligning our learning environments with the knowledge and skills that fit contemporary marketplaces of creativity, business, and public service.

The actions last week by the state Board of Education in further reducing the dominance of single-focused student academic assessments opens the door to more useful and relevant assessments that are based upon value added rather than scores on a test on one single day.

As I reflect on the opportunities before our school division to influence the transformation of public education across our country, I am grateful for the dedication, initiative, and courageous risk-taking of our teachers; for the innovation and connection our technologists bring to the classroom; for the pride and thoughtful excellence of our Transportation, Building Services, and Child Nutrition teams; and for the passion and the expertise delivered daily by our support staff in our schools and in our central office.

I hope this week will be a time when you and your family will gather around your Wisdom Table to experience that same sense of knowledge, conversation, collaboration, and deep appreciation for family and community that will make your future better.

Have a happy, healthy and safe Thanksgiving.

Pam

Pamela R. Moran, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools