The Massaponax High School auditorium was packed with Spotsylvania County Public Schools officials, teachers, administrators and other personnel Thursday morning as motivational speaker Jimmy Casas delivered a keynote address intended to uplift the standing-room-only crowd before students arrive on Monday.
Laughter erupted after the group played a game in which Casas instructed them to turn their backs to one another and guess the number the other person was signaling.
“You’re ready to embark on one of the hardest jobs in this country,” Casas said. “And for three minutes you forgot all about that.”
Spotsylvania Superintendent Clint Mitchell, entering his second year at the helm, acknowledged during Thursday’s convocation that that level of joy wasn’t always evident in the school division during recent years.
Mitchell hinted at the various controversies that plagued the school board as one faculty member shouted “Amen!” in agreement.
“When I came to this school division, people asked me, ‘Why did you take this job?’” Mitchell said. “That was the question a lot of my superintendent colleagues asked … I knew the answer then, and this morning, I know it even now. It’s because of you. The energy in the room and your passion is what I saw last year. It’s why I know I made the right decision.”
The auditorium at Massaponax High School was packed with Spotsylvania County faculty members Thursday morning for convocation prior to the upcoming school year. (Photo by Taft Coghill Jr.)
Mitchell provided hope when he said that, in his opinion, the school board is governing with more cohesion than when he first arrived. He also highlighted the division’s work with the board of supervisors to secure $11.7 million in additional funding this fiscal year and data that shows the employee turnover rate decreased from years past.
Mitchell said the boost in funding allowed the school division to modernize the pay scale for principals and assistant principals for the first time in more than a decade, and to do the same for maintenance workers.
He said the vacancy rate “is night and day” compared from last year to this year as the Human Resources department recruited teachers from near and far.
“All of you who are first-year teachers, thank you for choosing us,” Mitchell said. “To those of you who went from paras to teachers, thank you for choosing us. To those of you who came from out of state, thank you for choosing us. To all of you who came from our neighbors next door … thank you for choosing us. Lastly, I want to say to all of our teachers who embarked from Jamaica and the Philippines, thank you for choosing us.”
Mitchell also unveiled SCPS’ new strategic plan for 2025-30 and explained to faculty how to assess it and other tutorials using a ChatGPT project that he created.
The strategic plan is entitled Future Ready 2030, and Mitchell described it as the division’s “roadmap for the next five years.”
“I’m going to challenge my administrators to challenge you,” Mitchell told faculty members.
Mitchell noted that more than 200 community stakeholders provided input on the strategic plan, which outlines five main objectives: academic excellence and achievement, safe, engaging, and supportive learning environments, joy, health, and wellness, a diverse, innovative, and supportive workforce, and family and community engagement.
When Mitchell rode school buses to various areas of the county during the information-gathering phase for the plan, he was taken aback by the number of homeless students. He stressed that it wasn’t just minority families in the county dealing with homelessness.
“We have to partner with families,” Mitchell said. “We have to engage them because we have to make those kids as resilient as we can.”
The strategic plan lists the division’s eight core beliefs, a vision to “inspire students to reach their highest potential through educational excellence” and a mission statement that promises to provide “a high-quality education that inspires and empowers students to become resilient, critical thinkers who reach their highest potential to positively impact a global society.”
The school division also unveiled a new logo at the convocation. The Massaponax event was the first of the day and was for roughly half of the county’s faculty. A second event was held at Riverbend High School in the afternoon.
Casas, the Iowa-based CEO of J Casas and Associates, an educational leadership company, spoke at that event, too. During his speech at Massaponax, Casas encouraged teachers and administrators to greet students by name, leave them meaningful notes, create a system of occasional home visits — and to only fear being stuck in the same place as the year before.
“You can’t fix all these kids,” Casas said. “You don’t have to. You just can’t quit on them.”
