Hopewell City Public Schools

What is the focus of Hopewell's grant from the Wallace Foundation?

The Wallace Foundation logo features a blue square with a smaller blue square inside, along with the text 'The Wallace Foundation' and the tagline 'Supporting ideas. Sharing solutions. Expanding opportunities.'

Hopewell is one of three districts (along with Henrico and Sussex) in a partnership with Virginia State University (VSU) in receiving this grant for the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). The primary focus of the grant is to assist universities in redesigning their principal preparation programs to better meet the needs of districts.

There are about eight other UPPI grantee partnerships like ours across the United States. This UPPI grant cycle follows other Wallace grants over the last couple of decades that have all focused on the development of school leaders. This is the first one that has more specifically focused on the role of universities in preparing school leaders.

What does Hopewell gain from being a part of this grant?

As part of the UPPI grant, Hopewell has been at the table with VSU in helping to redesign their courses and programs for school leaders. The new course design is scheduled to launch in 2020 and Hopewell is expected to be able to have up to 10 candidates in the program.

In addition to the university course design, the grant affords Hopewell (and other district partners) resources to support ongoing training and development of school leaders (including teacher leaders). This includes a data platform called a Leadership Development System, in which needs for training and development can be collected and supported. There are then also funds to support training and some coaching to address the identified needs.

Participation in the Wallace grant also enables us to learn from national experts on a variety of topics and collaborate with local partners. It also provides us an opportunity to shape changes at the state level.