President's Note
We welcome you to the February 2026 edition of the VACTE Newsletter! I am honored to serve as your President until June 2027. We are fortunate to have a dedicated VACTE Leadership Team and Executive Board--and we’re always looking for new folks to engage with the good work of the association.
A few updates from VACTE’s temporary “home office” (yes, my home 🙂) in Alexandria…
Inquiry Initiative
Following the three-year implementation of ATE's Inquiry Initiative, VACTE launched a two-year edition in Virginia at our Fall 2025 Conference. The purpose of the initiative is to:
- Provide a focused, collaborative research structure for VACTE members to address a pressing scholarly, pedagogical practice, and policy issue: teacher retention
- Promote long-term research relationships among existing VACTE members - and provide new members with opportunities to engage
- Highlight VACTE as a research, practice, and policy player in the Commonwealth
We welcomed 29 individuals from across the Commonwealth to engage in this two-year endeavor, supported by Team Liaisons, VACTE Secretary and Inquiry Initiative Co-Director Audra Parker, Project/Research Assistant Lin Rudder (also an English teacher and a current PhD student), and me as the other Initiative Co-Director. We will look forward to providing updates on the Initiative’s work at our March conference.
Proposed Constitutional Revisions
We will be sharing some important VACTE constitution tweaks at the spring conference. Laurie Rice (our President-Elect), Nancy Bradley (our Executive Director), and Ellen Rodgers (our Awards Committee Co-Chair) have made proposals designed to enhance representation of all VACTE members and institutions on our board and committees and in all of our activities.
Leadership Job Descriptions
We will also introduce VACTE Leadership Position job descriptions in March--another initiative intended to be transparent with our membership about these roles and to encourage other members to consider stepping into one of these capacities.
I look forward to seeing you at Mason’s SciTech campus on March 9th and 10th!
Best,
Kristien Zenkov, PhD
VACTE President, 2025-2027
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Conference Updates
Spring 2026
Please join us for the spring 2026 conference at the SciTech campus of George Mason University in Manassas, VA on March 9 and 10. Registration is open! Registration closes on March 2. Make sure to register early since space is limited.
Theme: Strengthening the Teacher Pipeline: Focusing on Issues Related to Teacher Retention
This year we will be joined by members of Virginia Professors of Education Leadership (VPEL). We will also have keynote addresses from Sarah Calveric, Superintendent of Caroline County Public Schools, and Anne Holton, former Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia to share their insights on Teacher Retention.
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SIG Updates
POLICY & ADVOCACY
The Advocacy and Policy SIG welcomes all VACTE members to sign up for our listserv!
New Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General in Virginia
Democrat Abigail Spanberger was sworn in last month as Virginia’s 75th governor, making history as the first female governor. She pledged to lead with unity, affordability, and pragmatic action amid deep national divisions and growing uncertainty coming out of Washington.
“It is the honor of my life to stand before you and take the oath today,” Spanberger said, underscoring the gravity of the moment and her responsibility to all Virginians.
Spanberger was sworn in alongside fellow Democrats Ghazala Hashmi, who took the oath as lieutenant governor, becoming the first Muslim woman to win statewide office anywhere in the United States, and Jay Jones, who was sworn in as Virginia’s attorney general, making history as the commonwealth’s first Black attorney general.
Changes to VA University Governing Boards and General Counsels
Governor Spanberger quickly moved to shift leadership at the state’s universities in her first hours in office Saturday, appointing 27 people to fill board seats at three public colleges and signing an order calling for a review of the appointment process.
The nominations came less than a day after five board members at the University of Virginia, including its two leaders and a major donor to the school, resigned under pressure from Spanberger, a UVA graduate. All had been appointed under her predecessor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, whom Democrats have criticized as being overly involved in Virginia’s colleges.
Jay Jones, who was sworn in as attorney general, dismissed the general counsels at George Mason and VMI. Democratic legislators also vowed to make more changes in how the state’s public colleges are governed.
The governing boards at UVA, George Mason University (GMU), and the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) had several vacancies in recent months after state Democratic senators rejected picks made by Youngkin. Spanberger had previously said she intended to quickly fill the vacant seats at those three schools.
In all, Spanberger appointed 10 people to the board of UVA, along with five people to VMI and 12 to GMU.
More detail on Governor Spanberger’s first-day executive orders
Governor Spanberger signed 10 executive actions that broadly targeted affordability and redirected Virginia away from former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's approaches to education, immigration, and race. Health care and identifying potential ways to loosen housing restrictions got their own executive orders.
Spanberger is also rescinding a controversial executive order of Youngkin’s that directed state and local law enforcement to pursue immigration-related enforcement duties. Executive Order 10 does not withdraw from existing 287(g) agreements, according to Spanberger Communications Director Libby Wiet.
It solely rescinds Youngkin's issued mandate — which directed Virginia's law enforcement agencies to become federally deputized for immigration enforcement and opened up Departments of Corrections facilities for immigrants' federal processing and detention.
Read the executive orders here.
Virginia Legislature
The Virginia House of Delegates currently stands at 64 Democrats and 36 Republicans – the biggest Democratic majority in decades. The Senate of Virginia currently stands at 21 Democrats and 19 Republicans.
Legislators are looking at several pieces of legislation, ballot initiatives, and 4 constitutional amendments: enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, restoring voting rights for formerly incarcerated individuals, removing the (now defunct) ban on same-sex marriage, and holding mid-decade congressional redistricting.
Additional Notes
We also encourage all VACTE members to sign up for our listserv in advance of the conference! The listserv sign-up is just below the 'Get Involved' part of our page on the Advocacy and Policy page of our website.
While you are there, we highly recommend signing up for the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP)'s and Virginia Mercury’s newsletters as well. VPAP offers daily updates on all things involving Virginia's state and local government news, often with a focus on educational issues. They also do weekly recaps and occasional special reports. The Virginia Mercury also offers a good daily round-up of state-level policy issues.
Advocacy and Policy will soon be making use of the state’s "Lobbyist in a Box" tracking system, available at low cost organizations such as ours. Better tracking means that down the road we'll need all of YOU to help weigh in with Virginia legislators on pending legislation.
Thanks for joining us next month and we’ll see you at VACTE in March!
-Jeff Davis and Maggie Barber
VEAC
This is a reminder that your EPP’s completer lists are due to Jillian McGraw by February 15 for the 2025-2026 data collection cycle.
If you have any questions about the VEAC cycle or the submission process, reach out to Joel Hanel (vat4aa@virginia.edu) and Jillian McGraw (jep4j@virginia.edu).
