Collaboration Not Compliance: Virginia’s Governor’s Children’s Cabinet’s Transformational Approach to Supporting Local School Divisions to Enhance Student Outcomes

Abstract

The Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, signed an Executive Order to establish the Virginia Governor’s Children’s Cabinet, an executive-level cabinet dedicated to the education, health, safety, and welfare of Virginia’s children and youth. One of the Cabinet’s initiatives was to improve academic outcomes for students in Petersburg, a low performing school division that was selected as a pilot site to help the Cabinet learn how to build trust and work collaboratively with localities. While the Virginia Department of Education had a Petersburg school improvement plan focused on school leadership and teacher quality, the Children’s Cabinet focused on reducing absenteeism through interagency collaboration to address drivers such as inadequate health, housing, and nutrition. These drivers were selected because 34 percent of Petersburg students had seven or more unexcused absences per year, with more than five percent missing over 21 days; there were over 300 homeless students in the division; the teen pregnancy rate was five times the state average; and 100 percent of students received free and reduced lunch. To improve attendance, the Children’s Cabinet partnered with the Petersburg Superintendent and City Manager to create the City Partnership with the Schools which included state and local leaders from across health, social services, juvenile justice, education, nonprofits, faith communities, families, and students. Because the state’s role had traditionally been one of enforcing compliance, not collaboration, this capstone describes the journey of transforming the state’s role from sanctions to support. Throughout this capstone, I recount and analyze my process for creating a sustainable state and local partnership by understanding Petersburg’s powerful history, brokering interagency relationships, leveraging state resources, building local capacity, establishing collaboration structures, shifting mindsets, developing trust, and moving diverse stakeholders toward a collective goal of improved student outcomes. Seven principles emerged to inform future Governor’s Children’s Cabinet collaborations with localities: 1) Culturally responsible engagement; 2) Asset-based approach; 3) Inclusion of local voice at all levels; 4) Development of a sustainability plan; 5) Equalized access to power; 6) Strengthened relationships; and 7) Improved local capacity.