Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Education
 
Board
State Board of Education
 
Guidance Document Change: In 2021, the Virginia General Assembly passed House Bill 1904 and Senate Bill 1196, and was signed into law by Governor Northam. The law establishes new requirements to support culturally competent educators in the Commonwealth. The Guidance on Cultural Competency Training for Teachers and Other Licensed School Board Employees in Virginia Public Schools was developed for the Board to fulfill the statutory mandate to provide guidance on the minimum standards for the local training requirement.
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12/7/21  7:09 pm
Commenter: SAMUEL EDGAR KETNER

Cultural Competency Training
 

I am a retired educator and have paid some attention to recent developments, so I hope you will pay attention to my words. First, I have worked in a number of fields–psychology, construction, engineering, etc.--and in none of these have I found the distinction between theory and application to be as sharp as in education. Pedagogy is remarkably detached from what actually takes place in those buildings with all the desks and children. Similarly, the CCT document your agency offered for public comment is incredibly short on details. What you have here is some heartwarming but pseudoscientific balderdash. These notions make everyone feel good as long as they’re just talk, but when the initiative reaches the point of implementation–when you have to itemize exactly what changes you’re going to make–it’s going to be a disaster. I do not think you can define or quantify very much of this at all, and I do not believe that this will lead to “Creat(ing) safe, and culturally affirming learning environments where all dimensions of diversity are respected and all students are held to high expectations” to quote the text, especially the part about high expectations.

CommentID: 116789