Governor McAuliffe announced today that the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) will award five $50,000 high school innovation planning grants to divisions that have proposed bold, innovative programs aimed at building the workforce of the 21st century.

The five divisions include Fairfax County, Newport News, Salem, Williamsburg-James City County and a Chesterfield-led consortium of 10 Richmond-area school divisions.

The grants, which were established by the 2015 General Assembly and signed by Governor McAuliffe as part of the budget, will allow local school divisions receiving the funds to enact their own specifically-designed program, free from the usual regulations imposed on school divisions.

The grants were the brainchild of the Standards of Learning Innovation Committee.

Each of the approved grants include essential elements of high school innovation, including student-centered learning, “real-world” connections between learning and careers aligned with the needs of local employers, and alternative models for instruction and organization.

“Governor Terry McAuliffe and the General Assembly challenged school divisions to think outside the box and develop nontraditional approaches to instruction, measurement of content mastery and school governance,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Steven R. Staples said. “These planning grants will allow the five most promising proposals to move from vision to reality.”

Additional funding beyond the planning grant will not be required; grantees will use existing state and local funding to implement the innovative programs. Each plan was developed so that it can be potentially replicated by other divisions with minimal costs.

Final plans are to be presented to the state Board of Education in April 2016. At that time, the board will consider requests for waivers of regulations that may be required for implementation.

See the funded proposals, listed by lead school division: https://governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/news-releases/