Virginia ACP mandate
Virginia's Academic and Career Plan (ACP): College and Career Readiness from Grade 7
Under 8VAC20-132-140, every student develops an ACP beginning in 7th grade and maintains it through graduation, with completion required by the fall of 8th grade.
In Brief
Virginia's Academic and Career Plan (ACP) is the state's foundational career-planning mandate, designed to ensure every student has a clear roadmap from middle school through high school graduation. Starting in 7th grade, students work with educators to develop a plan that identifies their academic strengths, career interests, and a postsecondary pathway—whether that leads to a four-year university, community college, trade certification, or military service. The ACP becomes the guidepost for course selection, co-curricular involvement, and post-graduation planning throughout the student's high school years.
VDOE provides every Virginia school district access to Virginia Education Wizard, a dedicated, no-cost platform built specifically to manage ACP development and tracking. Counselors use it to oversee student progress, ensure compliance with state requirements, and maintain audit trails for ACP completion. For districts seeking to enhance their ACP process with research-backed career assessment or to improve student engagement, JobCannon integrates seamlessly into the existing Virginia workflow.
What ACP actually requires
Checked against 8VAC20-132-140 (Board of Education regulations establishing standards for accrediting public schools), not against a category description.
Recommended assessment battery for Virginia districts
Sequenced across the 7th-12th grade arc.
Who Virginia districts already use for ACP
Real tools and workarounds we found in use for ACP compliance — not a hypothetical shortlist.
Virginia ACP Key Facts
Related on JobCannon
This page is one of 38 verified career-plan mandate pages JobCannon tracks, each citing a primary statute or regulation — for the Virginia ACP mandate that source is 8VAC20-132-140 - College and career readiness; career exposure, exploration, and planning. For the broader rollout picture, see career assessments for school districts, or the JobCannon for Business hub.
District-tier pricing
Scale is $199/mo and covers 200 people per billing period — one person, however many assessments they take, and a class-code arrival counts the same as an emailed invite. Growth is $999/mo for 1,000. Above that, or where enrolment should not be metered at all, it is an Enterprise conversation rather than a larger self-serve plan. A district-sized enrolment runs out of the monthly tiers quickly — the Education Licence below prices your whole enrolment per student for the year, assessments uncapped, and adds the full career and skills corpus.
Free
For micro-teams trying the platform
- ▸10 candidate invites/month (resets the 1st of each month)
- ▸All 164+ assessments
- ▸Premium result for every candidate you invite
- ▸Every candidate profile fully open — nothing blurred
- ▸Share link via email or Slack
- ▸Free trial of the coordinator dashboard
Starter
For solo coaches and small HR
- ▸30 candidates/mo included; extra candidates are $2 each
- ▸All 164+ assessments
- ▸Premium report (archetype + blind spots + work-style brief)
- ▸Coach notes per candidate
- ▸PDF export (client-ready)
- ▸Session prep recommendations
- ▸Candidate progress tracking
Team
For startups, teams and HR
- ▸80 candidates/mo included; extra candidates are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Starter
- ▸Team DNA dashboard
- ▸Compatibility matrix
- ▸Conflict-pattern detection
- ▸Compare 2-3 team members
- ▸Manager prep briefings
- ▸Shared admin access (2 seats)
Scale
For agencies, L&D and scale-ups
- ▸200 candidates/mo included; extra candidates are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Team
- ▸Integrity + social-desirability scales (fake-good detection)
- ▸White-label PDFs (your logo)
- ▸Full assessment API (start, score, retrieve results)
- ▸Custom assessment builder (beta)
- ▸Admin seats not billed per seat
- ▸Priority email support
Growth
For high-volume screening without a contract
- ▸1,000 candidates/mo included; extra candidates are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Scale
- ▸Invoice / PO billing, not just card
- ▸Named support contact with a response-time target
- ▸Annual billing option
Enterprise
For 200+ person companies
- ▸Candidate volume set in your contract, all assessments
- ▸Everything in Scale
- ▸SLA (99.9% uptime)
- ▸Dedicated Customer Success
- ▸Custom integrations built against your tenant (Greenhouse and Ashby ship today)
- ▸Annual billing, invoice payments
Self-serve checkout via Stripe — major cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link. Cancel anytime; 14-day money-back on every paid plan. Enterprise via the contact form below.
Education Licence — priced per student, per year
One rate per enrolled student for the academic year, sized for Virginia district or school-level ACP rollouts. Assessments uncapped, career and skills corpus included — multiply your own enrolment by the band and you have the most this can cost before you talk to us.
$1.25 down to $0.80 per student, per year — assessments uncapped
That multiplication is a ceiling, not a bill. If our self-serve plans would cover the same number of students for less, you are quoted the lower figure — we do not sell an institution its own students back at a higher price than anyone can buy them for on the pricing page.
District
A large school, multi-school district or trust
per year
- ▸Every assessment in the catalogue, retakes included, no per-assessment charge
- ▸Cohort dashboard with cross-school and year-over-year comparison
- ▸Full career and skills corpus — 2,521 careers, 1,863 skills
- ▸Read the corpus live over the API, or take a versioned snapshot
- ▸Named contact, quote letter formatted for procurement
College or university
A university, college or college group
per year
- ▸Every assessment in the catalogue, retakes included, no per-assessment charge
- ▸Cohort dashboard with cross-school and year-over-year comparison
- ▸Full career and skills corpus — 2,521 careers, 1,863 skills
- ▸Read the corpus live over the API, or take a versioned snapshot
- ▸Named contact, quote letter formatted for procurement
State system
A statewide or national programme
per year
- ▸Every assessment in the catalogue, retakes included, no per-assessment charge
- ▸Cohort dashboard with cross-school and year-over-year comparison
- ▸Full career and skills corpus — 2,521 careers, 1,863 skills
- ▸Read the corpus live over the API, or take a versioned snapshot
- ▸Named contact, quote letter formatted for procurement
£350 per school, per year — a flat whole-school licence rather than a per-student rate, because that is the unit UK schools budget in. Same uncapped assessments and same corpus. Excludes VAT.
The ladder starts at 1,301 students. Below that a self-serve plan already covers your whole roll for less than a licence would, so that is what we will point you at — and UK schools have the flat whole-school licence above at any size. Bands are by enrolment, and the rate applies to your whole roll rather than to a seat count you have to predict. Invoiced annually against a purchase order; no per-assessment charge and nothing to top up mid-year. Assessing an institution's enrolled students is covered by the Education Licence, not by a hiring plan. What is in the corpus.
Request a Virginia district pilot
Tell us how many students you expect to assess in a term and what your review process asks for. If something on your requirements list is not in the product, we will say so in the reply rather than in the pilot.
No. Virginia has mandated Academic and Career Planning since at least the early 2010s as part of college and career readiness standards. 8VAC20-132-140 codifies the requirement that every student develop an initial ACP by the end of 8th grade and maintain it through graduation. Most Virginia districts already use Virginia Education Wizard for ACP tracking.
Every student in grades 7–12 is required to develop and maintain an ACP. The plan begins in 7th grade, is completed by fall of 8th grade, and is then reviewed and updated throughout high school to reflect changing interests and coursework.
An ACP must include the student's postsecondary career pathway (college, trade, military, workforce), an aligned four-year program of study, and documented academic and career interests. Career interest discovery is foundational; many districts add formal career assessments to strengthen this element.
Yes. Virginia Education Wizard is provided at no cost by VDOE and is designed specifically to meet state ACP requirements. Districts can choose to enhance their ACP process with additional assessment or engagement tools, but the state platform is freely available.
JobCannon can provide research-backed career interest assessments (like the RIASEC inventory or Multiple Intelligences) that feed into the ACP development process—helping students discover their interests and strengths before they formalize their pathway in Virginia Education Wizard or your district's chosen platform.
Virginia's ACP mandate does not legally require the use of a specific career assessment tool; assessment is implied as foundational to interest discovery, but districts may fulfill this through various methods (counselor interviews, informal exploration, formal assessments, or a combination).