Superintendent's Message
Our focus is preparing youth and adults for success after incarceration. Academic and vocational training are means to an end - the return to school, the pursuit of higher education, and employment upon release.
Mission
To provide quality educational programs that enable incarcerated youth and adults to become responsible, productive, tax-paying members of their communities.
DCE Teacher Feature
She was not in her usual place and not in her usual dress, but someone had spotted Faye Walker. He was smiling, and he was running to greet her.
“One of my boys!” recalled Ms. Walker, a Special Education Instructor and African dancer, who performed in Fredericksburg during a recent weekend.
“He was from my class in 1999. He came up and gave me the biggest hug!”
Faye Walker makes that impression on her students. Put her in a different place, at a different time in a different dress, and her students will remember her anyway. She is unmistakable. She keeps her hair in “locs,” her arms a jewelry collection of shiny bracelets. And every Thursday at John H. Smyth High School, she wears traditional, highly colorful African dress.
The 29-year DCE veteran has spent almost her entire working career at what is today known as DCE’s Smyth School. When she arrived in 1980, she worked for DCE’s precursor, the Rehabilitative School Authority at the Hanover Learning Center.
Walker, a Hampton native who has resided in Richmond since her days as a Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) undergraduate, had planned to stay at her school for only five years.
But long ago her students convinced her otherwise. And they continue to convince her every day. “Every time one of them comes to me and lets me know they are counting on me, every time they come to me for something that nobody else can give them, I stay,” she said. In 1989, she earned her Master’s in Behavioral Disorders from VCU and she continues to stay with her dual passions: dancing and teaching.
“She has a good relationship with the students,” said her Principal George Drewry. “She knows the subject material, but she relates it to what the students are doing. And she knows the system and she goes out of her way to help her students.”
Ms. Walker loves teaching; in fact she goes above and beyond the call of duty to assist with the DCE/VCU tutoring program. Twice a year she steps in to “tutor the tutors.” She also has served the Virginia’s Correctional Education Association for years and in 2008 ended a lengthy term as its state director.
If she had to make a single complaint about education, she might say it is a bit sedentary for her tastes. After all, she is a dancer.
“I’ve always been involved in movement,” she said. And her life changed one day in 1973 when she attended an African dance performance a Richmond’s Mosque, now know as Landmark Theatre. “I was hooked,” she said. She became a founding member of the Ezibu Muntu African Dance Company. “We want to connect with our culture and develop pride in people who have no idea how they relate to Africa. When you connect with your heritage, the way we have, it makes you a more solid American. When you are comfortable with who you are, you are a better person and more able to deal with others.”
The dancing and the teaching will continue indefinitely, she said. The recent run-in with a former student re-affirmed her commitment. “He told me, ‘I’ve done good Ms. Walker! And when something like that happens, it just makes you feel so good.”
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DCE’s GED Pass Rate Climbs
DCE’s General Educational Development (GED) passing rate increased slightly this year and remains well above the state average. The 2008 passing rate of 77.8 percent eclipses last year’s 76.2 percent. DCE also remained ahead of the state average, 72.3 percent.
Preparation is the key, said DCE’s Senior Assistant Superintendent for GED/ISAEP Patricia Blair. “We try to do the best thing for the student. We do lots of pre-testing, and we are constantly re-evaluating the qualification criteria so that the people who qualify to take the GED are able to pass.”
In 2008, 1,654 students took the GED through nine different DCE regional testing sites. The regional site system, developed for DCE in 2000, puts testing services close to all facilities and ensures the availability of GED testing throughout the year. The regional sites must maintain 90% adherence to "model center" concepts, which were set by the GED examiners themselves and are evaluated each year as part of the annual GED audit. All nine centers function "above and beyond" the basic requirements in the GED Examiner's Manual as part of the DCE model center concept.
The newly established testing center at Green Rock had the highest pass rate, 81.3 percent; followed by Appalachian, 80 percent; Bland, 78.9 percent; Southampton, 78.6 percent; St. Brides, 74.7 percent; Richmond, 73.4 percent; and Augusta, 72.9 percent.
Only two testing centers had rates lower than the 72.3 percent state average: Lunenburg, 70.3 percent; and Coffeewood, 65.9 percent.
The annual report makes several program recommendations including increased staff development for teachers in the areas of critical thinking and project learning, and further expansion of initiatives that will increase the completion rate.