Education Story Archives - Page 96 of 97 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Most W.Va. Counties May Allow In-Person Schooling This Week

Updated on Sept. 27, 2020 at 12:07 a.m.

The West Virginia Department of Education announced that two counties will be remote learning-only for the week of Sept. 27. State officials rolled out updated data Saturday, Sept. 26 at 5 p.m.

Kanawha and Wayne counties will not be open for in-person instruction this week.

There are no counties in the red category at this time.

Red (Substantial Community Transmission): Remote-only learning mode. No extracurricular competitions or practices are permitted. Staff may report to their schools, as determined by the county. Essential support services, including special education and meals, will continue. Counties in red include: None

Orange (Heightened Community Transmission): Remote-only learning mode. Extracurricular practices may occur, however, competitions may not. Staff may report to their schools, as determined by the county. Essential support services, including special education and meals, will continue. Counties in orange include: Kanawha, Wayne

Gold (Elevated Community Transmission): In-person instruction is allowed with restrictions including face coverings at all times for grades 3-12. Extracurricular activities are permitted and competitions can take place against schools within the same county as well as schools in other gold counties. Counties in gold include: Fayette, Logan, Mingo, Summers

Yellow (Increased Community Transmission): School may be held for in-person instruction. Extracurricular practices and competitions may occur. Health and safety precautions include, at a minimum, face coverings at all times for grades six and above. Please refer to your county for specific face covering requirements. Counties in yellow include: Berkeley, Boone, Doddridge, Jackson, Marshall, Mineral, Morgan, Putnam, Wirt, Wyoming

Green (Minimal Community Transmission): School may be held for in-person instruction. Extracurricular practices and competitions may occur. Health and safety precautions include, at a minimum, face coverings in grades three and above when students are outside of core groups and in congregant settings and on school buses. Please refer to your county for specific face covering requirements. Counties in green include: Barbour, Braxton, Brooke, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Gilmer, Grant, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Jefferson, Lewis, Lincoln, Marion, Mason, McDowell, Mercer, Monongalia, Monroe, Nicholas, Ohio, Pendleton, Pleasants, Pocahontas, Preston, Raleigh, Randolph, Ritchie, Roane, Taylor, Tucker, Tyler, Upshur, Webster, Wetzel, Wood

All schools, both public and private, are expected to adhere to the WVDE’s re-entry map to guide in-person instruction and extracurricular activities.

Updates to the map will be announced each Saturday at 5 p.m. and will be in effect until the following Saturday at the same time, according to the WVDE. The only exception would be if a county turns red during the week.

If this happens, the change would be made immediately to the map, according to the WVDE, and all in-person instruction and extracurricular and athletic activities would be suspended.

As of Saturday morning, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources reports 15,158 total cases of the virus and 332 deaths. 3,705 cases are considered active.

**Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story listed Marshall County in the gold category. The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources later amended this action on Saturday at 9:30 p.m., placing Marshall in the yellow category.

W.Va. Department Of Education To Post Virus Outbreaks At Schools Daily

West Virginia schools that are experiencing outbreaks of COVID-19 will now be identified daily on the West Virginia Department of Education’s website.

Gov. Jim Justice announced in a virtual press briefing Friday that outbreaks at West Virginia’s primary and secondary schools are defined as two or more cases that are connected to each other.

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources and the Department of Education are partnering to update the list daily.

The change comes after reporting by the Charleston Gazette-Mail spurred questions over why cases in schools were not being publicly reported.

West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch said he will be meeting everyday with DHHR to discuss the list.

“We will every day post the outbreaks that are active, the schools, the number of cases,” Burch said, “And we’re even going to post if that outbreak led to a school going to remote learning.”

Burch also noted the Department of Education is hoping to hire more school nurses. He said, right now, there are 450 school nurses employed in the state. New funding from the West Virginia Legislature could help hire more, although Burch did not specify how many new nurses would be hired.

‘It’s Not About History. It’s About The Future’: Holocaust Education Survey Shows Lack Of Knowledge Nationwide, In West Virginia

A report out last week suggests many younger Americans — including young West Virginians — have a lack of knowledge about the Holocaust. The findings of a survey on the matter come as a state commission to improve education on the atrocities of the Holocaust is seeing a revival.

The survey, conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, analyzed Holocaust knowledge of people 18-39, identified as millennials and those from Generation Z.

The survey found that 63 percent of respondents across the nation did not know that six million Jews were murdered. And more than a third — 36 percent — thought that two million or fewer Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Additionally, although there were more than 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust, nearly half of respondents were unable to name a single one.

Gideon Taylor, who serves as president of the group that commissioned the survey — also known as the Claims Conference — said the results are shocking. He also said such educational efforts are imperative to preventing similar atrocities.

“For us, Holocaust education is not about history. It’s about the future,” Taylor said. “It’s about understanding what happened and using those lessons for guiding us in how we go and live in our lives.”

The survey found that many young people are also exposed to a distortion of facts about the Holocaust on social media — or, even worse, content that pushes a false narrative that it never happened.

“As wonderful as social media can be, it also — as we know — can have very negative effects. And one of them is that it’s given a platform to horrible neo-Nazi views of Holocaust denial. And that came out also in this in the study,” Taylor said.

The survey showed that 48 percent of respondents nationwide said that they had seen Holocaust denial or distortion on social media.

As fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors remain, the opportunity to hear from those who experienced the event becomes less available.

“To educate people about the Holocaust is so that people will know what racial hatred is and where racial hatred can lead to, what the ultimate conclusion of a program of racial hatred that went unchecked and led to the mass destruction — not only of the Jewish people, but of Roma and Sinti and other groups as well,” Taylor said.

The Claims Conference survey also found that 65 percent of West Virginians surveyed did not know 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. Forty percent of those young West Virginians did not know what the concentration camp Auschiwitz was. Taylor noted that the state ranked 28th in its Holocaust knowledge score.

“West Virginia was somewhere around the middle, and it wasn’t, you know, the top, wasn’t at the bottom. But we don’t need to look at this as the top or the bottom because this is a measure of information and knowledge,” Taylor explained. “But more it’s a ‘What does it tell us for what we want to do?’”

West Virginia has not been immune to displays of anti-semitism. In December 2019, a photo of state corrections officer trainees surfaced that showed the class of cadets giving a Nazi salute. The photo sparked public outcry, but some in the Jewish community wondered if the gesture was intentionally offensive or made out of ignorance.

“We seem to be fighting two battles in America. One is woeful ignorance about basic history about things that have happened in the past. And I think the other battle that we’re fighting with is [that] we have a rise in hate,” Rabbi Victor Urecki of Charleston’s B’nai Jacob Synagogue said.

Urecki was appointed in February to the state Commission on Holocaust Education, which has lain dormant for years. While the revival commission has yet to hold a formal meeting, Urecki says its return has proven necessary by recent events and surveys like the one from the Claims Conference.

“I think in light of the incident that occurred with the cadets at [corrections] — and also in light of the rise of white supremacists in our country — and then, again, with the follow up with the cadets, it seemed to be just a matter of woeful ignorance about things that should be basic in our country’s knowledge of what has happened in the past,” Urecki said. “It seemed to highlight the need for [the West Virginia Commission on Holocaust Education’s] existence.”

Urecki and Taylor of the Claims Conference both said they are deeply concerned about the results of the survey. But Taylor says that, despite his group’s findings, he does see a silver lining. Many of those surveyed across the nation — and especially in West Virginia — reported that they think Holocaust education is important.

“On the one hand, you have the lack of knowledge, but you also have an overwhelming proportion — 84 percent — saying it’s important to keep teaching about the Holocaust,” Taylor said. And I think that’s the part we also need to focus on. There is a strong desire to learn more.”

Taylor said he encourages states to take a look at education policies. He says while mandates might be a way to get there, buy-in from school districts, teachers and state education agencies are key.

“I think that what is most important is a commitment — a sense from leadership of people engaged in education at the state and at the local level — that this is important. Important, not just because it’s an item of history that people should know,” Taylor said. “It’s important because Holocaust education sets the tone and gives a message and teaches lessons for what we want going forward.”

Officials with the West Virginia Department of Education, which oversees the state Commission on Holocaust Education, did not immediately respond to a request for more information on the revival of the workgroup.

At the West Virginia statehouse, recent efforts to mandate Holocaust education in public schools have failed.

House Education Vice Chairman Del. Josh Higginbotham, a Republican from Putnam County, announced last week he plans to reintroduce legislation that would require Holocaust education in public school cirriculum. A similar bill from Higginbotham failed to make it out of his committee during the 2020 legislative session.

WVU Says In-Person Learning Can Resume Following Pause Due To COVID-19 Spike

In-person classes will resume Monday, Sept. 28 at West Virginia University’s Morgantown campus, following a two-week period where undergraduate classes transitioned online due to a spike in positive coronavirus cases.

In-person classes will resume Monday, Sept. 28 at West Virginia University’s Morgantown campus. The change comes following a two-week period earlier this month where undergraduate classes temporarily transitioned online due to a spike in positive coronavirus cases among students.

In a Wednesday news release, university officials said both daily student case numbers and overall cases in Monongalia County — home to WVU’s flagship campus — are down.

“The data drove our decision and I am so delighted all indications are we can safely return to in-person instruction,” President Gordon Gee said in the release.

In-person classes were moved online Sept. 9 following a rise in cases after the Labor Day holiday weekend when it was reported several parties were thrown among students.

WVU reports it has tested all students and staff who have returned to campus. Since July 20, the university has tested a little over 30,000 people. Five staff and 571 students have tested positive.

WVU said 24 students have been suspended and about 120 have or will receive COVID-19-related sanctions, which could include probation.

Since students have returned to campus, Monongalia County has been rated “red” and now “orange” by state health and education officials. K-12 classes have not been allowed to resume in-person at public schools.

Data from state health officials show the county was reporting a 14-day rolling average of 19.21 daily cases.

Despite Pandemic Shakeup, Less Than One Percent Of Students, Staff Testing Positive For COVID-19 At W.Va. Colleges, Universities

It’s been about a month since all of West Virginia’s public and private four-year institutions started their fall 2020 semesters. It’s no surprise that reopening in this historic year has been a challenge for all the state’s schools. But there is some hopeful news to report. Fewer higher education students and staff in West Virginia are testing positive for the coronavirus than expected, according to officials.

Back in the spring, when things just started changing because of the coronavirus pandemic, West Virginia’s higher education officials were trying to prepare for fall 2020. Were students and faculty going to wear masks? How would testing look? Would any classes even be held in person? And how often would cleaning have to ramp up?

Well, we know now that everyone is required to wear masks on college campuses, and cleaning efforts have increased a lot. Gov. Jim Justice committed $2.5 million so that all students and staff at public and private higher education institutions would be tested at the start of the semester. Most students in dorm rooms do not have roommates, and class sizes have been reduced and have taken on a mixed look: some in-person, some remote, some hybrid.

And less than 1 percent of students and staff are testing positive for the virus at most of West Virginia’s higher education institutions.

“I don’t think anyone thought the numbers would be that low,” said Sarah Armstrong Tucker, chancellor of both the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC) and the Community and Technical College System of West Virginia.

“That has been really wonderful,” she said. “And is a testament to all of the hard work that the colleges have put in place, as well as the governor testing everybody up front.”

One institution though, Tucker said, has been an outlier. That’s West Virginia University. At the start of September, WVU suspended 29 students after they attended large parties at fraternities not recognized by the university. A member of one of those fraternities tested positive for COVID-19 and yet, still attended parties.

“I understand our community’s frustrations,” said Corey Farris, dean of students at WVU in a press release. “The university is frustrated, too. We clearly communicated prior to returning to campus the health and safety protocols that must be followed in order to have on-campus learning … No matter where they are, if a student cannot abide by the health protocols put in place for their safety and the safety of the community during a global pandemic, we do not want them here.”

On top of this, Monongalia County has seen significantly high numbers of cases and was in the red zone on the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’ color-coded map for a few weeks.

But there have been other challenges that have arisen that higher education officials are giving a closer look.

Anna Williams, student body president at Marshall University, spoke at the Higher Education Policy Commission’s regular meeting last week to highlight for members, areas where Marshall students have been struggling.

She described how Marshall has tried to expand broadband access for students by installing 15 hotspots that provide high speed internet to students with mobile phone access.

“I took my law school admissions test, and I had to take it on the hotspot on my iPhone, because the internet could not support the system that they were using,” Williams said. “Talk about stress.”

She said it wasn’t until they got these hotspots up and running that, even for a place like Cabell County that’s relatively well-connected, she realized how big the broadband gaps are.

“I can’t imagine what some of these other students are going through in Wayne County, Boone County, McDowell.”

The West Virginia Department of Education has partnered with the governor’s office, the HEPC and the CTC System of West Virginia to expand broadband access across the state through the Kids Connect Initiative. It created more than 1,000 WiFi hotspots throughout the state, spread out in all 55 counties, to help both K-12 students as well as higher education learners access the internet.

But broadband is still a challenge for many students who may be unable to reach these hotspots.

Williams also noted how mental health concerns have become truly apparent for college students because of the pandemic. She said flexibility from teachers is key to reducing mental health woes as well as access to programs and other help.

“Mental health is safety-net programs. It’s the technology-device programs. It’s the food and security programs,” she said. “It’s helping students find housing, or some sort of stability in their interrupted routine.”

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report that surveyed more than 5,000 Americans. The survey showed that people aged 18-24, people of color, and essential workers were experiencing considerably higher rates of adverse mental health conditions because of impacts from the pandemic. Those conditions included depression, anxiety and contemplating suicide.

Chancellor Tucker said mental health is a significant concern right now.

“People are staying in their apartments. They’re staying in their dorm rooms. And that can really add to stress, anxiety and depression,” Tucker said. “So, we’ve been trying really hard to push out resources to our students and to our faculty and our staff and our institutions that helps with mental health awareness.”

Some of those resources include simply reaching out to students more often through a text message service offered by the HEPC or having access to a counselor via telehealth. Some schools, like Marshall, are using apps that help students track their moods and keep a digital journal of how they’re feeling.

Enrollment, also, at some institutions has been a big challenge. For example, Marshall recently reduced pay for almost 800 employees because enrollment was so low this fall.

“I sincerely regret that we have to take this step,” said Marshall University President Jerome Gilbert in a statement. “It is still our intent for these temporary salary reductions to last no longer than one year.”

However, at schools like Shepherd, Concord and West Liberty Universities, they’re actually seeing an uptick in enrollment in certain programs.

Tucker said this is because many families have chosen to keep students closer to home or sent their kids to smaller schools.

Moving forward, Tucker said higher education officials are working with the West Virginia National Guard to do surveillance testing. For example, monitoring wastewater at dormitories. Tucker said you can detect COVID-19 in wastewater, and potentially stop an outbreak before it becomes an outbreak. But surveillance testing is not cheap.

Nothing about this pandemic is cheap.

“This pandemic is expensive. Doing what the colleges need to do in order to keep their campus community safe is expensive,” Tucker said. “So, there have been significant financial hits to all of the institutions.”

Tucker said she’s hopeful that the next federal relief package, like the CARES Act, will allow schools more flexibility in how they spend those relief dollars.

West Virginia’s four-year institutions saw $50 million from the CARES Act, two-year institutions saw about $10 million, and private, not-for-profit institutions saw a little more than $8 million.

But 50 percent of that money had to be given directly to students in the form of grants and refunds, while the other 50 percent had restrictions on how the schools could use it.

Most of West Virginia’s public and private four-year institutions have coronavirus dashboards on their websites that show how many people at those schools have been tested, how many cases are positive and active, and how many students have recovered.

All schools have specific resource pages that feature COVID-19 related news and updates specific to that school.

How One Old Ohio Valley Farm Is Embracing New Farming Techniques

According to Columbia University—a symbiotic relationship between communities and local farms will effectively ensure a more sustainable future for people. Through developing sustainable agricultural practices, many farmers and communities are working together to grow and consume nutritionally-dense food, including Drew Manko of The Ross Family Farm.

Drew Manko is a sixth-generation farm manager for The Ross Farm — a heritage, family-owned farm that’s been operating for over a century in the upper Ohio Valley region. The farm raises specialty, rare-breed sheep to produce wool and lamb. Drew’s mother, Amy Ross Manko explained that the family immigrated across an ocean some 300 years ago from Scotland and Wales.

“I’m on the 1910 Farm which was actually purchased in 1894,” Amy explained. “And down the road about a mile and a half my cousin is on the 1830 farm. And then if you go about three miles farther down the road, you get to the 1700s farm.”

The farm is now home to 11 breeds of heritage sheep—which are breeds that come from, and have adapted to specific, challenging geographic regions. While steeped in personal and historic farming traditions, Amy explained modern farm managers like her son Drew are part of a movement of innovative farm techniques that both lean into the future and hearken to past practices.

“When I call my son innovative,” she said, “it’s because he’s not sitting back saying, ‘well, we just got to ship into the auction because that’s what Pap did.’ No, he’s going out and seeking clients. He’s processing himself. He’s got a USDA processing number. He’s providing the community with healthy, humanely raised, sustainable food.”

As part of a youth storytelling series made possible through Oglebay Institute and the Rural Arts Collaborative (RAC), Ohio County public school kids there are teaming up with an outfit of urban farmers with the nonprofit Grow Ohio Valley. Jenn Jenson brought local sheep farmers in to speak with students. Together they put together this story.

Ohio County Schools student Bree Wiley collects the thoughts of farmer Drew Manko.

Student Question: What’s The SCARIEST thing to happen on the farm and what was going through your mind?

Drew Manko: I was chased down by a steer one time, and I jumped the gate just in time for him not to get me with his horns. We were loading him up to go to the processor. And he decided that maybe he didn’t want to go. And he turned around and chased three or four of us. I know Jordan was there that day, but uh, yeah. He just kind of put us down and thought about it for a second and then took off after us. It was really that like instinctual fight or flight? Like there’s no way I’m going to take on this 1200 pound animal so I just ran as fast as I can away from him.”

Drew also shared the story of how his grandmother once saved their livestock from a dog attack.

Drew Manko: There was a dog attack before I was born in ‘93 and we lost, 66 ewes were ripped up by dogs — not even wild dogs, somebody’s dogs that lived near the farm. So, my grandmother, who was a professor of nursing at WVU, stitched every single ewe back together. We didn’t lose a single ewe and they all lambed shortly following that.

Drew went on to explain that today some of his sheep are butchered and their meat sold. Others are bred for their wool. He also talked about what happens to the wool after sheep are sheared.

Drew Manko: We send it out to the family owned mill in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and they spin it into either yarn or roving and send it back to us. And then mom goes to 10 or 12 fiber festivals a year and sells them as well as we have a shop on Main Street in Washington that we sell yarn from, as well as online.

Amy Manko: I started the yarn company in 2012. And then people ask me questions, and I figured out I better learn how to spin and knit because I didn’t know the answers!

Student Question: What advice do you have for young farmers who might just be starting up?

Drew Manko shows students photos from his farm.

Drew Manko: My generation has watched the turmoil that we’ve had in the 90s, early 2000s. Where the prices are down, the inputs are up, they’ve watched their fathers and their grandfathers and their mothers and their grandmothers struggle, and work a job or a second job as well as on the farm. And that’s not something they want to do. Because they don’t want to live like that. They don’t want to struggle like they’ve watched their ancestors struggle. They get that there’s-never-going-to-be-anything-for-me-here mentality. The second they’re out of high school they’re going to college, welding a pipeline, they’re doing something else.

So the main thing is: don’t give up.

There’s a lot of opportunities that the old timers either didn’t see or didn’t understand. Like niche marketing, direct marketing, direct-to-consumer, stuff like that. I mean we’ve got an older guy that farms a farm down the road from us and behind us as well, and … he just calls me crazy.

Drew says his least favorable part—the hardest part—about being a farmer is the risk he has to take.

Drew Manko: I mean, any morning I could wake up and the place could be on fire and we would lose it all. And you know, we could have a bad predator attack and lose a lot of animals. We could get a disease come through, like you’re seeing in the Chinese swine population right now. Just the uncertainty or the risk of it.

Student Reactions

Despite hearing about scary encounters with bulls and dire warnings about risks associated with farming, students came away with respect and longing to visit the Ross farm. Many aren’t far removed from a time when farming was a normal, critical way of life in their families. And many experts in the field say returning to small farm models, which are still prevalent in this region, is the future.

This story is part of a youth storytelling initiative made possible through Oglebay Institute and the Rural Arts Collaborative (RAC). RAC is funded by the Benedum Foundation and aims to bring professional teaching artists into schools during the content day to enhance the arts education experience.

It was recorded and produced out of a yurt in an outdoor classroom in the middle of an urban farm in downtown Wheeling.