The Petersburg City Public Schools board on Aug. 20 approved a two‑year pilot partnership with Virginia State University and the Cameron Foundation aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism by strengthening family engagement and data-driven school practices. The pilot will be tested at Pleasant Lane Elementary School.

The board approved the memorandum of understanding after a presentation by Dr. Yasmin Gay, chief of staff, and Dr. Walter Willis of Virginia State University describing the pilot's goals: build family engagement capacity, create an internal attendance dashboard and apply high-impact strategies at one test school so successful practices can be scaled to other schools in the Cameron Foundation service area.

Why it matters: Petersburg reported that in the 2022-23 school year nearly one in three students were chronically absent, an increase from pre-pandemic levels. The district told the board that the pilot is intended to demonstrate how targeted family‑engagement work can lower chronic absenteeism and increase students' sense of belonging.

The pilot will fund expert guidance, professional learning for school staff and community data collection. Dr. Gay said the district will start with an internal dashboard created in PowerSchool, then move to an out-facing public dashboard after vetting the data. She told the board the district will present monthly attendance updates to the board and expects the public dashboard to follow after internal validation.

Dr. Gay framed the pilot as "a partnership" and said the district will collect family and school community feedback to design an effective model. She cited national examples and said the pilot's theory of action is to: (1) provide professional learning for educators, (2) implement family engagement strategies guided by experts, (3) collect continuous data and (4) refine and scale an effective model.

Dr. Walter Willis, representing the Cameron Foundation and VSU, emphasized community collaboration and said, "the Cameron Foundation says that data and the national information that has already been collected show that these things work. Why not here in Petersburg?" He and Dr. Gay said the pilot will start at one school to allow testing and revision before broader implementation.

Board members asked about dashboards and public visibility; Dr. Gay confirmed an internal dashboard is ready and the district expects to publish an external, division‑level dashboard after a vetting period. The district said it will provide the board's first monthly attendance update in September.

Next steps: The MOU was approved by the board; the pilot will run for two years at Pleasant Lane Elementary, with data collection intended to produce a replicable model for other schools in the district and in the Cameron Foundation service area.

Speakers quoted in this article are those who appeared during the presentation and vote: Dr. Yasmin Gay (Chief of Staff, Petersburg City Public Schools) and Dr. Walter Willis (Virginia State University / Cameron Foundation partner). Additional staff referenced the internal dashboard timeline and reporting cadence.