As a born-and-raised Virginian, I am very proud of the incredible diversity of people within our Commonwealth. I consider this to be a great advantage in so many areas of life, including business, public service, community-building, and especially in education! What better way to ensure that we produce well-rounded, knowledgeable, accepting, and compassionate students, than to ensure that their educators are culturally competent? It's so important to foster an educational environment where all can feel welcome; to celebrate both our differences and our similarities; and to address our own implicit and explicit biases.

I have read through many of the other comments submitted about this Guidance Document, and unfortunately many seem to rely on certain "scare words" without actually addressing the content of this document, and many have clearly not read this document at all. Admittedly, I am not an educator myself, but having read this document in its entirety, the main emphasis of this framework seems to be to encourage self-reflection, improve communication, foster a welcoming environment for all, and to cultivate relationships grounded in mutual respect within the classroom and out in the community. All of these are things that I wholeheartedly support, and therefore I support the framework that is presented in this Guidance Document.