Rockbridge County Public Schools are moving deeper into the rollout of the Virginia Literacy Act this school year, expanding and refining a district-wide reading initiative that began last year and now includes middle school students alongside elementary grades.
The Virginia Literacy Act, passed in 2022 and phased in beginning with the 2024–25 school year, requires all school divisions to align reading instruction with what’s known as the “science of reading,” an evidence-based approach emphasizing explicit phonics, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. The law also mandates regular screening to identify students who are struggling to read, targeted interventions for those students, and additional training for teachers.
Rockbridge County adopted its own divisionwide literacy plan in late 2023 and presented it publicly in 2024. At the December 2025 meeting of the Rockbridge County School Board, Assistant Superintendent Timothy Martino returned to the Board with an updated version of the plan, reflecting the next stage of implementation.
“This school year, MRMS is also included in the VLA,” Martino said in an email, referring to Maury River Middle School. “While the VLA has been quite the undertaking, our colleagues have embraced the work and are doing an outstanding job implementing the changes to our literacy program.”
Last year marked the district’s first full year using a new core reading curriculum in elementary schools, selected from a list of state-approved programs aligned with the literacy law. Martino described that adoption as the most challenging part of the process.
“Adopting a core curriculum was so much work,” he told the Board. “You hope by year three you’re about fully implemented, and I think we’re on track for that.”
With the core program now in place, the district is shifting from simply getting materials into classrooms to refining how they are used and surrounding them with additional supports for students who need extra help.
Teachers and reading specialists now have access to a mix of supplemental tools designed to target specific reading skills, such as phonics or fluency, rather than relying on a single program for all learners. Martino emphasized that this flexibility is intentional.
“If all programs worked for all learners, you’d just have one program out there,” he said. “Unfortunately, people don’t learn so uniformly.”
One of the most significant changes this year is the expansion of the literacy initiative into middle school.
The Virginia Literacy Act was originally focused on early grades, but lawmakers later extended its requirements through eighth grade, recognizing that many students reach middle school without strong reading skills. In Rockbridge County, that expansion means Maury River Middle School is now formally included in the literacy plan.
As part of that effort, the district has been working with coaches from the Virginia Literacy Partnership, a statewide support program, who have spent time in Rockbridge schools observing instruction and assisting teachers.
Middle school teachers are also beginning training on literacy intervention tools designed for older students, a process that will continue into next year.
A major component of the literacy law, and of Rockbridge’s plan, is regular assessment to track student progress. Students are screened multiple times a year, and those who fall behind receive individualized reading plans outlining targeted interventions.
Martino acknowledged during the Board meeting that this level of assessment brings trade-offs.
“There’s a lot of assessment, and assessment is good,” he said. “But we also worry about fatigue. We worry about loss of instructional time.”
District leaders said they are looking at new data systems to reduce the amount of time teachers spend compiling information so they can focus more on instruction and less on paperwork.
“We want them looking at the data, not spending all their time trying to get it together,” Martino said.
While the literacy plan is posted publicly on the school division’s website, Board members raised concerns about how accessible the information is for families without a background in education.
“If you read this and you don’t have some kind of background in literacy, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” one Board member said during the December meeting.
Martino agreed, noting that the district holds a “State of Literacy” forum twice a year to explain the initiative in plain language and answer parent questions — though he acknowledged attendance could be better.
“That’s our chance to get away from acronyms and talk in common language,” he said.
District leaders stressed that the literacy initiative is not a short-term fix, but a multi-year effort that will continue to evolve as teachers gain experience with the new approach and as more data becomes available.
“This document is fluid,” Martino told the Board. “It has the potential to be incredibly powerful.”
As of publication, the plan was on the agenda again for last night’s School Board meeting, to be presented for approval.
