Dear Colleagues:

Welcome to the 2014-15 school year! It’s been a delight to meet the cohort of excellent staff new to our school division and to visit with returning school and departmental staff as we all prepare to welcome our students next Wednesday.

Although I wasn’t a math teacher, I’ve always had a fascination about the stories that can be told in numbers. Usually, the simpler the number, the more powerful the story.

Earlier this month, in preparing for our new teachers academy, I ran across one of those numbers. It is 200, as in we had as many as 200 applications this summer for a single teaching position. While that ratio did not apply for every position we filled, in nearly every instance, we hired only a very small percentage of educators who wanted to join our division.

Certainly the highly celebrated quality of life in our area has something to do with our appeal as does our proximity, I’m sure, to the University of Virginia. But even more attractive is what is happening inside, not outside, our schools.

Student performance, measured in many different ways, continues to be among the best in Virginia. Our Child Nutrition program was one of the first in the state this past year to receive a perfect federal audit score. Our transportation department is among the most efficient, safe and forward-looking operations in Virginia’s school divisions. Our facilities, including media centers, and our contemporary learning spaces truly are state of the art.

It is not unusual for our teachers, administrators, and even students to be sought out to present at regional and national conferences, and often, we are one of the only school divisions in Virginia so invited. Our Assistant Superintendent soon will be the Chief Academic Officer for the entire Commonwealth. We were one of the first school divisions in the state to receive a planning grant for the “school of the future” and we received the largest such grant of any school division in the state.

The quality of work we do together in every school and across departments is why universities such as Harvard, UNC and MIT, or organizations such as the Smithsonian Museum and the New York Hall of Science want to visit or partner with us. People have heard of Albemarle County Public Schools as an innovative, rigorous and high-performing organization, one that welcomes change and empowers its team members to expand personal and professional horizons. I think that’s the reason so many teachers and classified staff want to come to our school division.

We often describe our purpose as unleashing the potential of every student. I like to think that Albemarle County Public Schools does more than that—that we unleash the potential of every teacher, administrator and member of our classified staff.

As we begin a new school year of high promise, I urge you to embrace the same 4 Cs we value in our students—to be creative and thoughtful in your contributions to our mission—to think critically and be a problem-solver—to collaborate with your peers and communities on our common purpose—and to be a great communicator about your needs, aspirations and plans in serving students and their families.

Thank you for being a member of our Albemarle County Public Schools learning community.

Regards,

Pam Moran
Superintendent