More than 200,000 visitors have now found the Virginia Education Wizard since it was launched last March.

And now that middle and high school students in public school systems across the Commonwealth are being introduced to the one-stop resource for career and higher education planning, that number will continue to grow.

In a news release about the milestone, Chancellor Glenn DuBois said he was not surprised.

“The worst economy since World War II is pushing people to really think about how to begin or even restart their career. The Wizard puts a wealth of information right in their hands and makes it so easy to use.”

It’s particularly gratifying to see the surge of visitors just since the start of school in September, notes Craig Herndon, special assistant to the chancellor and the architect of the Wizard project.

Planning has already begun for Wizard 2.0 – which will launch in the spring and include additional information from coalition partners in K-12 and higher education - and Wizard 3.0, scheduled for next fall, which will allow students to create and store academic and career plans, merge career pathways into those plans, and allow guidance counselors and teachers to create Wizard reports.