Virginia Beach education staff receive raises, among first to use early literacy program – The Virginian-Pilot

For Eileen Pewterbaugh, her new raise is the difference between just being able to pay bills and being able to save for her son’s future.

Pewterbaugh is a part-time early literacy tutor in Virginia Beach Schools and works with about 45 kindergarten through third graders each day.

The School Board approved raises for tutors like Pewterbaugh, as well as Title I substitute teachers and detention monitors, which are all part-time positions. Early literacy support staff’s hourly rates went from $18.50 to $27.21 for those non-certified and from $21.50 to $33.59 for those certified.

Pewterbaugh, who is not certified, said her annual pay is going from $17,000 to $28,000.

The increase shows respect for the tutors and other part-time employees, she said, and attracts quality staff who might have not been able to take the lower pay, meaning more early support staff to better help kids learn.

“What we’re doing is so important,” Pewterbuagh said.

Lower post-pandemic reading scores caused alarm at the state level, leading to an influx of initiatives and investments in literacy, including the 2022 Virginia Literacy Act and, more recently, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s All in VA.

In addition, for the first time in about two decades, an assessment that measures the reading and writing ability of young children was changed, and Virginia Beach is among the first in the state to use it this school year.

The Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening, or PALS, for kindergarten to third graders was updated and renamed to the Virginia Language and Literacy Screening System, or VALLS. It was also expanded to preschool.

The state’s Spring 2023 PALS report showed that the number of K-2 students — third graders take the state’s Standards of Learning assessment and are not required to participate in the screener — below reading benchmarks is still higher than pre-pandemic levels, though results are improving. Virginia Beach shows a similar trend, though the division reported more students hitting benchmarks, according to an Oct. 10 School Board presentation.

The new screening test not only identifies students not meeting benchmarks, it determines whether a child is at risk of developing reading challenges, said Robyn Backer, the early literacy language arts coordinator.

It measures students’ alphabet knowledge, ability to understand how letter sounds form words, writing and reading comprehension.

The students are placed in “bands of risk,” which will indicate what skill the student struggles with and recommend extra support. Since learning to read is not a “black and white process,” Backer said this process better matches the way students learn. Overall, she said the assessment is more comprehensive.

Schools can determine what level of support students need to be reading on their grade level by the end of third grade. Funding through the Early Intervention Reading Initiative is based on the number of students who need help.

Those students will receive 2½ hours of support each week, like those provided by tutors. 

Pewterbaugh tutors “everybody.” Her children were gifted and were in a similar tutoring program when they were younger. The groups are for students who “needed a little extra boost that tier-one classroom instruction will not cover.”

Virginia Beach is one of 17 divisions in the state piloting this assessment this year. Next year, all schools will use it along with changes based on research on the best ways to teach children to read, as required under the Virginia Literacy Act.

Virginia Beach was among the divisions to volunteer for the soft launch of the program last year just for preschoolers. Backer said this means the division has more time to get used to the assessments and ensure that the curriculum is aligned with testing.

Last year, the division used the screener on preschoolers to test the system, which gave them the chance to provide some feedback before it was widely implemented. The division reported that one of the subtests appeared to be too difficult, for example and was taken out. They are implementing other feedback this year.

Kelsey Kendall, kelsey.kendall@virginiamedia.com