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<h3 style="text-align: center;">Magna Awards recognize innovation and excellence in public schools</h3>
Charlottesville, VA – The Manassas Park City Schools, Virginia Beach City Schools and CodeRVA Regional High School are being recognized in the annual Magna Awards program sponsored by the National School Boards Association’s American School Board Journal. The Magna Awards recognize school divisions and their leaders for taking bold and innovative steps to improve the lives of their students and their communities. The 2020 awards program theme was Breaking Down Barriers to Learning.
“The Magna Awards showcase great programs that are taking place throughout the country under the strong leadership of school board members,” said Gina G. Patterson, executive director of the Virginia School Boards Association, “These programs are excellent examples of the types of innovative initiatives taking place in Virginia schools.”

Manassas Park City Public Schools is a Magna Award Winner in the under 5,000 student enrollment category for Support for English Learners. The school division has students who come from 50 different countries and speak 47 different languages and 60 percent of incoming students are identified as English Learners and economically disadvantaged. The school division has used programs such as the Language Acquisition Program to determine a diverse set of teaching strategies that provide each student with a personalized learning plan. The division has also instituted a digital 1-to-1 rollout and internet access to all families to ensure that all students have the resources they need to be successful.

CodeRVA Regional High School is a Magna Award Winner in the under 5,000 student enrollment category for Preparing Students for Tech Sector Jobs. CodeRVA is a high school located in Central Virginia that is focused on preparing students for technology-related careers. The three main goals at CodeRVA include redesigning the high school experience, addressing racial, economic and gender inequities in STEM-related education and to increase the pool of potential employees in computer-science related fields.

Virginia Beach City Public Schools is a Magna Award Winner in the over 20,000 student enrollment category for Fresh Start for the New School Year. The school division created a partnership with a local non profit to offer an event called JumpStart, where students who are identified as homeless and marginalized are able to receive everything they need in order to start school. This program provides clothing, haircuts, vision and dental screenings to attendees and also provides information on health care and other services that are available in the community. The program averages 500 students per year with more than 200 community members volunteering their time and talents to help ensure the students are ready for the start of school.

Additional information about each of the award winning programs is available from the American School Board Journal: https://www.nsba.org/ASBJ