DDVA Call to Action: Advocacy Alert
- decodingdyslexiava
- Nov 29, 2021
- 1 min read
Virginia's General Assembly 2022 Legislative Session is coming up fast and we'd like to help empower families in their advocacy efforts when communicating with their legislators.
Delegate Carrie Coyner has shared a comprehensive approach to build a statewide literacy plan through legislation.
Please read The Virginia Literacy White Paper
Share the White Paper and the Literacy Two Pager far and wide
Contact your legislators and share your support, questions or concerns
You are welcome to copy DDVA on your emails to legislators and/or send us your perspectives on the Virginia Literacy Act at decodingdyslexiava@gmail.com. Legislative bill language is pending and we'll share when it becomes available.
While I support most of the language and premise in this plan, as a black special education advocate & community member, I am concerned that this plan does very little to address the Black Literacy problem in Virginia.
The "white" paper identified that "Fifty-five percent of Black third graders failed the Reading SOL in the 2020-2021 school year, compared with 43% of Black third graders in the 2018-2019 school year."
However, the literacy plan has no action steps to tackle the identified inequalities for black students not reading on grade level.
Virginia should require public school divisions to provide Culturally responsive literacy materials, intervention literacy curriculum, instruction that bridge the gap between the school and the values of the students'…
It sounds like we can be on the watch for a bill number with a budget amendment. Those budget additions are tricky. Any chance that EIRI funds can be a part of this bill?