Author: Liz McCormick

Liz is WVPB's Webmaster/Digital Coordinator and Eastern Panhandle Bureau Chief, based in Shepherdstown, WV on Shepherd University's campus. Liz is a native of Charleston, West Virginia. She received a M.A. in Strategic Communication from American University in 2022 and a B.A. in Communication and New Media from Shepherd in 2014. Prior to her role as webmaster, Liz was WVPB's Eastern Panhandle reporter from 2014-2022, the House of Delegates reporter on "The Legislature Today" from 2015-2017, and she covered K-12/higher education from 2020-2022. Liz has also worked as a technical assistant and associate producer on "The Legislature Today."

School Safety Tops Agenda For State School Board

With the fall 2022 school year just around the corner, school safety and preparedness were top of mind at the July West Virginia Board of Education meeting last week.

This summer began with a dark cloud hanging over the country, as the United States reeled from yet another devastating school shooting. This time, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas where 19 children and two teachers were killed.

For many state education departments throughout the country, the incident renewed conversations about school preparedness in the face of a crisis.

That has certainly been true in West Virginia.

With the fall 2022 school year just around the corner, school safety and preparedness were top of mind at the July West Virginia Board of Education meeting last week.

Emergency Preparedness

Board members received an update from the state department of education’s Jonah Adkins, who spoke on behalf of Rob Cunningham, Deputy Secretary for the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security.

“Mr. Cunningham made this statement when we presented to the legislature a couple of weeks ago: that school safety is everyone’s responsibility,” Adkins said.

The West Virginia Department of Education and the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security have had regular meetings throughout the summer since the horrific school shooting in Uvalde in May.

The agencies are exploring ways to better collaborate and ensure everyone is prepared in the event of an active shooter or other emergency at schools.

Adkins reiterated to the board the importance of “one caring adult,” which is an initiative set by the West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch. It builds off the idea that as long as a child knows that at least one adult at school cares for them, they will do well in school, both emotionally and academically.

“We have to ensure that children have the services and the support that they need to deal with any emotional, social and emotional issues they may have, or any mental health issues that they may be facing,” Adkins said. “We have to make sure that those students have those appropriate supports. It takes people speaking up. It goes back to that saying, ‘if you see something, say something.’ Everyone has a part, everyone has a role in ensuring that our students are safe.”

Adkins told the board that Cunningham wants to implement a new app where students can report concerning behavior at school via text message. Adkins said the one they are considering would interface with existing apps that many West Virginia schools use to report bullying.

He also said the Office of Student Support and Well-Being in September will provide threat assessment training for school administrators, counselors, social workers and psychologists.

“We look forward to ongoing collaboration between [the department of education], department of homeland security, School Building Authority, the Fusion Center, and the West Virginia State Police,” Adkins told told board members. “I really believe that we’re working more collaboratively. We’re seeing positive results come of these meetings.”

State police also explained that some of the training offerings will not only be made available to school personnel and emergency responders, but also to members of the community, according to the WVDE.

“We have to address school safety from many angles,” said State Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch in a news release. “From creating safe and supportive school environments and being able to quickly recognize problem areas, to the role of our emergency response partners to protect public safety, we all have a part to play. Partners have plans in place that will also assist communities in understanding their roles in protecting schools. I believe by keeping this issue in front of us, we will be able to better protect our students.”

Paul Hardesty Named New Board Of Ed President

Also at the July meeting, former state senator and longtime public servant Paul Hardesty was elected unanimously as the new president of the West Virginia Board of Education.

Hardesty replaces former President Miller Hall who served as president since 2017.

Hardesty was first appointed to the state board as a member in Dec. 2021. Previously, he served on the Logan County Board of Education and was appointed by Gov. Jim Justice to an unexpired term in the West Virginia Senate.

Hardesty also held the positions of director of the Office Coalfield Development and legislative liaison for Gov. Bob Wise. He served as the director of the Public Energy Authority and was a member of the legislative staff for Gov. Joe Manchin.

Hardesty is a resident of Logan County.

“I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to continue to serve the great state of West Virginia and the children of our public school system,” said Hardesty in a news release. “We have many important issues in front of us, and we will work tirelessly to ensure our children are prepared for the opportunities available to them. I will start, day-one, to try and build back damaged relationships around the Capitol Complex, because, at the end of the day, we all want better educational opportunities.”

President Hardesty’s complete bio is on the WVDE’s website.

W.Va. Middle Schoolers Will See More CTE Opportunities This Fall

Rick Gillman, director of career technical education at the West Virginia Department of Education, said that while CTE programs exist in many counties, he and his staff wanted to develop something for all the middle school teachers in the state.

A push to get more career technical education (CTE) experiences in West Virginia middle schools will launch in the new school year.

West Virginia lawmakers on the Joint Standing Committee on Education received an update Monday about the initiative.

Rick Gillman, director of career technical education at the West Virginia Department of Education, told the committee that while these types of programs exist in many counties, he and his staff wanted to develop something for all the middle school teachers in the state.

“There’s always been career exploration, and counties can do things locally, but we wanted to actually develop a course that counties can use that covers all nationally recognized career clusters,” Gillman said. “[Bringing] CTE into the middle schools, and we wanted this to be hands-on.”

Gillman said he worked with elementary and middle school teachers across the state to develop the course called Discover Your Future CTE Exploratory Program. It offers learning opportunities within all 16 of the nationally recognized career clusters.

These clusters cover a variety of possible career paths. They include:

Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources
Architecture & Construction
Arts, A/V Technology & Communications
Business Management & Administration
Education & Training
Finance
Government & Public Administration
Health Science
Hospitality & Tourism
Human Services
Information Technology
Law, Public Safety, Corrections & Security
Manufacturing
Marketing
Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM)
Transportation, Distribution & Logistics

“We want [students] to take these career experiences, this career exploration, and help them try to answer the question: what do I want to do in high school? What do I want to do after high school? What do I want to do when I grow up?” Gillman said.
Each cluster takes two weeks and has four to five modules that a teacher will go through with their students. Each cluster also has a designated coordinator that a teacher can contact if they need advice or guidance on teaching the cluster.

There are more than 80 separate lesson plans available, according to Gillman.

“We wanted to provide flexibility in delivery, depending on the students’ needs in the county,” Gillman said. “And any West Virginia certified middle school teacher can teach this course. So a county doesn’t have to worry about staffing, adding someone else new. Any teacher they have on staff can teach this.”

Gillman said 48 middle schools in 31 counties have signed up for training this summer, but training is not mandatory.

The new course has been in development since October 2021.

'Let Them Talk,' WVU Researcher Says Adults Must Help Kids To Process School Shootings

Keith Zullig is a researcher and professor at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Education reporter Liz McCormick sat down with Zullig to talk about the impacts that school shootings have on our children – and what we can do to help them feel safe.

It’s been two weeks since the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

In this year alone, there have been 27 school shootings in the United States, according to Education Week. Last year, there were 34, which is the highest number of school shootings in a year since Education Week began its tracker in 2018.

During those four years, there have been no school shootings in West Virginia, according to Education Week.

Listen to the extended version of this interview to hear more of the conversation.

Listen to the extended conversation with WVU Researcher Keith Zullig

The transcript below is from the original broadcast. It has been lightly edited for clarity.

McCormick: I understand you have been investigating behavior change as a critical component in mitigating gun violence in U.S. schools. Tell us more about your research and how it relates to this recent tragedy in Texas.

Zullig: Thank you. I’m very interested in kids’ satisfaction with their schooling experiences and the climate of a school: the overall learning environment, how students treat one another, [and] how students feel about their interactions with their teachers.

What I’ve come to understand is that from a general standpoint, an outstanding school climate has a protective effect for lots of things. It can even blunt some of the negative effects of poverty that students may experience or some outside effects of the environments where they live.

So obviously, this has impacts in terms of how kids feel in school, in terms of a great environment for learning.

McCormick: What do you see in your research specifically in West Virginia? What sort of feeling do you get in terms of how our students feel? Do they feel safe in our West Virginia schools?

Zullig: I can’t say specifically how all students are feeling. But I do know that there are ripple effects from each of these shootings that, as a parent of a nine year old, just asking questions. So the day after the [Uvalde] shooting, for example, my wife and I had to sit our son down and just kind of process some of this with him to help him understand why they do some of the things they do at their school, in terms of active shooting drills.

[The drills] are pretty common across the country. Over 90 percent of schools have active shooting drills. Whether they’re evidence-based or not is another issue, but most schools do practice some form of intruder training.

McCormick: As a parent, what went through your mind when the shooting happened two weeks ago? You mentioned you have a nine year old, and many of the students who died in Texas were nine and 10 years old. How did you feel as a father?

Zullig: Well, there’s really no making sense of this kind of loss. But I can say you can’t be there for your children until you process your own feelings first. So calling a friend, talking to your partner, those things are really important for you to process.

Once you do that, you can remind your children of all the good people in the community, and in their school specifically, who is there to help protect them. You can review safety plans they may have covered in school, and at the same time, be attentive to really try to avoid any stigmatizing language around mental health.

The other part is to really listen to your children. Let them talk about the fears they may have. Creating a psychologically safe environment for your children to express their feelings is where they can truly be heard and reassured.

McCormick: That’s interesting. So being there for them, letting them talk it out with you helps them process all the feelings they might be going through.

Zullig: Yeah, and I think you have to process it yourself, though first, so you can actually be present for your children.

McCormick: Keith, you have described school shootings in the U.S. as a “persistent public health crisis” if left unaddressed. Can you talk more about what you mean by that?

Zullig: Yeah, of course. So let’s just say mass shootings, they really affect us all and can trigger Post Traumatic Stress Disorder amongst those directly exposed, and children are even more vulnerable than adults to any of these types of tragedies.

What I fear is the general threat of a school shooting, and the damage that it can have on mental health. So, for example, think about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Safety and security are really fundamental to a child’s psychological development. So any sense of danger that children may perceive can disrupt that security and have long term consequences, not only from things like mood disorders, but also educational and economic trajectories long term.

McCormick: What happened in Uvalde, Texas and Newtown, Connecticut in 2012, to our children in the Mountain State, may seem far away. But what would you tell them?

Zullig: Yeah, it seems like they could be quite disparate, because we’re not necessarily there. But I can certainly say that there are ripple effects from these shootings. And I think it’s really important to remind folks that for every deadly shooting, there are many more acts of violence at schools that are less fatal, and therefore less publicized every year.

So estimates suggest there’s about 50,000 or so students every year that are directly exposed to gun violence at school in the United States. These children are deeply affected by what they endure. And the younger the kids are, the harder it is to recover. So if you want to contextualize this a little bit more, I want you to think about, in addition to these 50,000 or so students directly exposed to gun violence at school, estimates suggest that another four to eight million, in a normal year, go through a lockdown.

Lockdowns result because of a threat of a gun. So, if you think about this even more, out of about 42 million adolescents in this country – anywhere between 10 and 20 percent of our kids are impacted by lockdowns every year.

So that’s really eye popping, when you kind of look at the totality of the impact, whether it’s just from lockdowns, or the less publicized offense in terms of gun violence, or the direct shootings, it’s quite large.

McCormick: What are your biggest recommendations to help mitigate school shooting incidents in the future?

Zullig: What I think would be a logical first step that I think a lot of us can get around is, we currently have a federal law on the books that you cannot buy a handgun until you’re 21 years of age. We’ve done that with handguns. It’s established. Why can’t we do the same thing with buying a rifle and increase the age from 18 to 21, to match that of a handgun? That would remove some of the access issues amongst a particularly vulnerable age group.

You have to remember that people’s brains are not developed until their mid 20s. A lot of times, emotional issues that young people may feel, are at a time when they have access to weapons, and that is just a lethal mix.

W.Va. Higher Ed Counselors Asking For Help In Mental Health Crisis

West Virginia college counselors are overwhelmed and asking for support from the state legislature. “The counseling center staff are weary, there's no question about it,” Dr. Hawkins said. “Because we’re operating as if we are in a psychiatric emergency room.”

West Virginia college counselors are overwhelmed and asking for support from the state legislature.

Dr. T. Anne Hawkins, director of the West Virginia University (WVU) Carruth Counseling Center, gave a presentation Sunday on mental health in higher education to the Joint Standing Committee on Education.

“College counseling centers, around the state and around the country, are one of the most popular places on the campus,” Hawkins told lawmakers. “And they have been for the last 10 years. We increasingly are seeing more and more students.”

From 2010 to 2020, Hawkins said there was a “dramatic increase” in depression and anxiety amongst West Virginia college students. She noted, however, there was a decline in substance use during that time.

Hawkins said since the start of the pandemic, WVU’s crisis intervention went up by 36 percent. WVU, on average, provides almost 500 counseling sessions a week to students.

“This year, we will have served about 10.7 percent of the student population,” Hawkins said. “This is pretty tremendous. Thirty percent of our clients, our students, report self injury, 31 percent report suicidal thoughts, and 13 percent report a previous suicide attempt. Think about that – 13 percent.”

Hawkins told lawmakers she is “very concerned” about the nature of mental health in college students today.

“The counseling center staff are weary, there’s no question about it,” she said. “Because we’re operating as if we are in a psychiatric emergency room.”

Hawkins recently conducted a survey with some of the state’s college and university counseling centers. She said across the state, counseling center directors want to see more clinicians placed throughout the state.

She urged lawmakers to come up with incentive programs – similar to the state’s nursing and teaching programs – to get more clinicians to stay in West Virginia, receive good pay, and be placed in both K-12 and college institutions to help with the growing need.

“The focus should be decreasing stigma, enhancing and expanding digital and mental health services. We’ve got to work upstream. We’ve got to increase connection and a sense of belonging,” Hawkins said. “We’ve drifted off course, and that was beginning before the pandemic. We’ve got to create a culture that values well being.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports in 2020, suicide among people ages 10-14 and 25-34 was the second leading cause of death in the nation. That same year, for people ages 10-64, it was among the top nine leading causes of death.

The CDC also reports nationwide, the average anxiety severity scores increased 13 percent from Aug. to Dec. 2020 and then decreased 26.8 percent from Dec. 2020 to June 2021. Similar increases and decreases occurred in depression severity scores, according to the CDC.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 for help.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Fairmont State BOG Votes To End President’s Contract Early

Just one day after Fairmont State University President Mirta Martin announced she would not renew her contract with the school at the end of the year, the school’s board of governors met and voted to end it even earlier.

Updated on Thursday, May 19, 2022 at 12:30 p.m.

Fairmont State University’s Board of Governors (BOG) voted Wednesday afternoon to end its contract with President Mirta Martin – months earlier than what was first announced by the university president.

Just one day after Martin announced she would not renew her contract with the school at the end of the year, the school’s board of governors met and voted to end it even earlier.

Martin’s contract will now end on July 18, rather than Dec. 28, which was when her contract was initially set to end.

The vote by the board was not unanimous, according to a news release. Staff representative Jon Dodds and student representative Maiya Bennett voted against ending Martin’s contract.

Fairmont’s BOG Chairman David Goldberg abstained from the vote.

“Fairmont State University has a longstanding history of strong and transformative leadership,” Goldberg said. “Each of our 26 presidents has left a unique and distinct mark on the Falcon family and President Martin is no different. Through her passionate and energetic leadership, Dr. Martin achieved all of the goals set before her by the board.”

The board also voted to transfer all presidential powers and responsibilities to current Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Dianna Phillips. The BOG said it will immediately launch a national presidential search.

Martin served as president of the university for almost five years and said she began to consider her decision to leave over the winter holiday. She said while the choice “was a tough and emotional decision to make,” she thinks it’s the right one for her and the university.

“I am so incredibly blessed to have already served in this role for nearly five years. During this time, Fairmont has become my home, and the Falcon family, my family,” Martin said in a campus-wide email on Tuesday. “It is an honor and an absolute privilege to serve all of you. It is also my honor to serve this institution and the state of West Virginia as your president, as president of the Council of Presidents, and as president of the Board of the Mountain East Conference.”

While Martin has received some criticism for her leadership on social media, the school’s board praised work completed while under her leadership.

“[Fairmont State University] has returned to a strong financial position,” Goldberg said. “More than 36 certificate, major, minor or concentrations at the undergraduate and graduate levels have been created and enrollment is trending up for the fall semester. As we look ahead to the future, the board stands ready to ensure a continuity of leadership and support for our students, faculty and staff.”

Original Post by the Associated Press:

Fairmont State University President Mirta Martin plans to step down from her position later this year.

Martin, who was named president in 2018, said in a letter Tuesday that she won’t seek an extension of her contract when it ends in December, news outlets reported.

She told WV News that she made the decision recently after months of reflection and conversations with family. She said she felt she had “achieved the goals that were set for me when I arrived and that I set for the university.”

Financial stability and sustainability have been restored, the school has successfully emerged from the coronavirus pandemic and it has stronger ties to the community, Martin said.

“I’ve acted in the best interest of our students and this institution always, and we’ve established programs of distinction that have made us a destination,” she said.

Martin said she would help make a smooth transfer to the next president.

Fairmont State University Board of Governors Chair David Goldberg thanked Martin for her service and said the panel would meet to review her letter and decide on next steps.

W.Va.’s Higher Ed Leaders Approve New Nursing Programs At Concord, Glenville And University Status For Bluefield State

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission on Thursday approved two new Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs for Concord University and Glenville State University.

Gov. Jim Justice in December announced the West Virginia Nursing Workforce Expansion Program, which aims to address the ongoing nursing shortage. He said in that press briefing that the state has seen 1,700 nurses leave the field, and it’s been compounded by the stress of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the hope is the expansion program will change this trend.

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission on Thursday approved two new Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs for Concord University and Glenville State University.

“We are tremendously grateful to Gov. Justice for providing this historic funding to support the expansion of nursing education programs across West Virginia,” said Sarah Armstrong Tucker, West Virginia’s chancellor of higher education. “Through these new projects, our postsecondary education community will be better positioned to help shore up West Virginia’s nursing workforce, which, in turn, will help support our nurses working tirelessly on the front lines right now.”

The two new programs are among 27 nursing education programs at colleges, universities, schools of nursing, and career technical education centers across West Virginia that have received a total of $25.5 million through the governor’s nursing workforce expansion.

Concord will offer its own nursing program, while Glenville will offer its BSN through a partnership with Marshall University.

Concord’s BSN will be a 120 credit-hour program and will focus on meeting rural healthcare needs to help address the shortage of registered nurses in southern West Virginia.

Glenville State University will offer an educational opportunity that is not currently available in the central part of the state.

Concord’s BSN will begin in spring 2023, while Glenville’s will begin in the fall of that same year.

The HEPC on Thursday also approved university status for Bluefield State College.

The change will not go into effect until an official change is made by the school’s board of governors and the state legislature.

The criteria for university status, according to the HEPC, include offering at least one master’s-level degree program; having an approved mission statement that provides for the offering of graduate programs; obtaining the approval of the Higher Learning Commission to offer any master’s degree program; and having at least two-thirds of its faculty holding a terminal degree.