Gov. Jim Justice on Friday said the state is starting to see a “rapid increase” in new COVID-19 infections as the impact of the delta variant is starting to be felt across the nation.
Justice said at his briefing that the state has a total of 3,372 active cases. Those include 14 outbreaks of the virus in long term care facilities, 10 outbreaks in churches and 29 inmates and four staffers at the state’s correctional facilities.
Of those jail infections, 20 are inmates at the Stevens Correctional Center in the McDowell County town of Welch.
“We all know how to stop it — get vaccinated,” Justice said, noting that West Virginians are characteristically stubborn but also thoughtful and giving — and should be looking out for one another by taking the shots.
The governor said no new mask mandates are planned. “We’re going to keep trying and crawling every way to get everyone vaccinated,” he said.
Justice touted 3,000 newly vaccinated state residents since Wednesday. But he reported nine new deaths. Those who aren’t yet vaccinated, he said, “are taking a helluva risk.”
He encouraged state residents who are vacationing out of state to wear masks if they are close to large groups of people or gatherings, whether vaccinated or not.
Five counties are now in the red zone on the state’s color-coded map for infections. But the state continues to move forward on plans for a full return to in-person schooling over the next couple of weeks. Justice noted that education officials are readying contingencies but hope more students will get vaccinated to keep outbreaks and illnesses at bay. Prizes of $50,000 will be awarded to the 12 school across the state with the highest vaccination rates.
Dr. Bill Crouch, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Resources, said 31 percent of students age 12-plus still haven’t gotten the vaccine.
“Our kids desperately need to go back to school,” Justice said. “If this thing continues to get worse and worse and worse, there is a possibility of having to pivot and do a lot of different things.”
The last and final Do-It-For-Babydog vaccination sweepstakes is slated for Tuesday with a $1.58 million cash prize and a second $588,000 cash prize set to be awarded along with trucks and college scholarships. Those who have received at least one shot have until Sunday night at 11:59 p.m. to register for the final drawings.
In our latest installment of our summer education series, “Closing the COVID Gap,” we explore the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on broadband needs and virtual schooling.
Many pockets of West Virginia still do not have reliable internet access in homes, yet thousands of school children last year were forced into remote and virtual learning.
Additionally, West Virginia lawmakers approved a bill this past session that allows the creation of virtual charter schools in the state.
Education reporter Liz McCormick spoke with Chris Harrington, director of Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute at Michigan Virtual School, who has studied virtual learning for ten years, to get some perspective on ways to make it successful in West Virginia — and the importance of reliable internet access.
Michigan Virtual School is a nonprofit that was launched in 1999. According to its website, the program is not a school itself, rather it provides a variety of online course options for students who may not have access to a particular subject of interest at their school. The program also offers professional development for educators in Michigan and globally.
The organization’s research institute studies blended and online learning throughout Michigan, the nation and internationally to incorporate a global perspective.
Extended: Making Virtual Learning Successful Requires Coordination Across A School System
This transcript from the original broadcast has been lightly edited for clarity.
LIZ MCCORMICK: The coronavirus pandemic came out of nowhere, and students and teachers were thrown into virtual settings. What makes a good virtual schooling model?
CHRIS HARRINGTON: For schools and districts to do this right, there really needs to be a lot of thought and strategic design put into the planning of the program, and then the actual implementation of the program. Technology is going to be a foundational piece of that. Then that means computing devices. Also internet access — whether it’s making sure that there’s enough internet access in a school or district if students are engaging in online courses, on-site, in the school, or certainly from home. So having those technology foundational components is really important.
But then also, what comes right off the heels of that is, how a teacher teaches in a virtual environment is also very different. How you communicate with kids is different. How you provide feedback for students is different. How you create community in a virtual classroom is different. And it’s not something that is very intuitive for a novice teacher or for someone who is new to teaching in the virtual environment. And that certainly doesn’t come naturally, when we’re thrown into it like we were.
There needs to be some time to grow teachers’ skills in teaching in a digital learning environment, and make sure the technology is there, the instructional design built into the development of your digital content, and then of course, your professional development to grow teachers in their skills of teaching. In a virtual course, those are the critical components, in my opinion.
MCCORMICK: How important is it to have a supportive home system for these children? How important is that component to having an effective virtual schooling model?
HARRINGTON: You hit the nail right on the head there. That is critical, because every home situation is different. I’ve led multiple virtual learning programs serving as a director for schools and districts in the state of Pennsylvania. One of my foundational components of success — for any student — was engaging the family, and working with the family, and setting up the right learning environment at home, [to ensure] they knew how to do this, and they knew how to support their child. Because that’s not something that all adults are able to just know without being given some guidance from the school.
MCCORMICK: What sort of issues did you find the pandemic exposed in the country, when it comes to virtual schooling and the needs of virtual school? What did we learn?
HARRINGTON: One of the things that we knew was a problem and a concern was equity of access to technology. We knew it existed before the pandemic, but boy, when everybody was pushed to be learning virtually and remotely, that was certainly highlighted and became a very severe pain-point for a lot of schools and districts who are suffering from that inequity.
I think some of the other concerns, or some of the other issues that were really brought to the forefront, was that there were a lot of schools and districts who were using technology in a supplemental way only, in some cases. Some schools were just dabbling in technology. They had the technology, but there wasn’t a real formal plan and structure around how we’re really going to leverage technology to deliver the benefits that it could promise. And as I mentioned before, it’s the content and that cohesive approach to developing course content, but then also all the pedagogical skills to be able to do that. That was certainly the biggest hurdle that I think we ran into.
I think this is why there was so much stress, you know, in the homes of families. But then also in teachers’ virtual classrooms and also with the administrators, because this education just wasn’t delivering what we really hoped it could be delivering during this time. And I can tell you right now, that is where schools and districts are focusing on moving forward.
MCCORMICK: Chris, going back to some of those critical needs that you touched on when it comes to having a successful virtual model. West Virginia, and many rural states, have struggled with providing adequate and reliable broadband internet.
This past year, in an effort to help those kids and families stay connected for school, West Virginia officials established something called Kids Connect, where they made more than 1,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, and they spread them out all over the state, so that if a family didn’t have internet at home, they could at least drive to one of these hotspots so that kids could turn in their homework. That’s not ideal, and I wonder, as a researcher, what needs to happen going forward in rural places like West Virginia? What needs to happen to improve access to this utility?
HARRINGTON: You mentioned the term utility. We get heating to people’s homes, we get electricity in people’s homes, we get water to people’s homes, or if we don’t have pipe water, there’s water supplies available somehow, someway. We have ways of getting these other utilities to homes. But how do we do it for internet access?
If there were conversations between telecom providers and state officials, and the state Department of Education, and include your state chambers of commerce, things like that, and identify what are the standards of access that are needed. And then prioritize funding and accountability, expectations to make sure that the work actually gets done. It takes a sustained effort.
I think one of the things that we probably have examples of in every state is when we really want to get something done, we can get it done. But I think it’s going to take collaboration. It’s not just going to be one telecom provider, it’s not just going to be one grant coming from the state that incentivizes to a certain extent.
I think it has to be a whole systemic analysis of what do we really need for business? Commercial purposes? And also educational purposes? And how do we actually get it there and then actually put the process in place and get the funding and the human resources aligned to be able to make it a reality.
This episode of “Closing the COVID Gap” originally aired on West Virginia Morning on July 28, 2021.
In this installment of our summer education radio series, “Closing the COVID Gap,” we look at summer school remediation efforts in the state.
In the fall of 2020, one-third of K-12 children in West Virginia failed at least one core subject, according to the West Virginia Department of Education. Officials said this was due to the inconsistencies in learning models and stress from the pandemic.
In an effort to help students get back on track, the WVDE launched the Summer SOLE grant program. SOLE stands for Student Opportunities for Learning and Engagement. It was funded by the second round of federal CARES money to schools.
“Summer SOLE is designed to bring children back to school, and teachers as well, without the pressure of grades and assignments,” said Melanie Purkey, senior officer for the Office of Federal Programs and Support at the WVDE.
Purkey said counties had the flexibility to come up with programs that fit their county’s needs.
“Students are going to get to experience field trips. They’re going to get to do nature walks, some [schools] have outdoor classrooms,” Purkey said. “They’re going to give [students] a lot of academics but social-emotional support as well, and provide experiences for students who weren’t able to have this over this past year because of COVID.”
Every county in West Virginia, except for Boone, applied for the money. In a report from Coal Valley News, officials from Boone County Schools said they already had enough funds available for a robust summer program, so they chose not to apply for the SOLE grant.
The SOLE program offered more than $32 million to districts, divided up based on population. For example, Kanawha County Schools received about $3 million from SOLE, while Wayne County Schools received a little more than $800,000.
“It’s really important to make this a fun thing for the kids, because so many of them have been out of touch with their friends and classmates for the last year,” said Kanawha County Superintendent of Schools Tom Williams. “So, [this summer has] been a good opportunity for kids to come together and have some fun and learn.”
There were unique ways that some counties tackled summer remediation. Elementary-aged students in Wayne County visited a nearby farm to pick herbs, feed chickens and learn about mindfulness.
In southern West Virginia, students in Mercer County experienced a mobile program meant to bring education closer to students. “Classrooms on Wheels” brought themed school buses to neighborhoods, which included a technology bus and a STEM bus.
In the Eastern Panhandle, students in Jefferson County had themed weeks focused on things like space, planets and simple machines — all with the overarching goal of ensuring kids felt safe being inside school buildings again.
“Creating those warm, rich, loving experiences with children that then open them up to learning,” said Lee Ebersole, Jefferson County’s Director of Social and Emotional Support. “That’s what we’re trying to do here.”
State education officials agree, they wouldn’t be able to provide the level of high quality programs this summer without the help of Summer SOLE and other federal dollars.
On top of that, the state has years to work with some of the funds, such as the American Rescue Plan, to pinpoint the greatest needs in West Virginia.
“We have three years to develop strategies and work with children and monitor their progress and improve what they are doing to help them regain that ground,” said Purkey. “I’m hopeful that at the end of that three years, [students] will have regained and surpassed where they were before.”
This episode of “Closing the COVID Gap” originally aired in West Virginia Morning on July 21, 2021.
West Virginia education officials have launched a voluntary competition called “I Got Vaxxed” that is asking students 12 and older to get their COVID-19 vaccination.
Children 11 and under are not yet eligible for the vaccine.
The competition will award $5,000 to the high school, middle school, and elementary school with the largest percentage of vaccinated staff and students. The money can be used toward a school prom, pep rally or any student-based activity.
The West Virginia Department of Education is encouraging all eligible school-aged children to get vaccinated against the coronavirus before school starts in the fall.
In a video announcing the competition, the state’s coronavirus czar Clay Marsh called on parents to ensure their kids get vaccinated.
“This new variant, the Delta variant of COVID-19, it’s a different virus, it is much more infectious,” said Marsh. “It infects children. It is going to drive more illness and death in people that are not vaccinated.”
Marsh said 95 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are people who are unvaccinated. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they are still studying COVID-19’s impact on children, “most children with COVID-19 have mild symptoms or have no symptoms at all … [but] in rare cases, they might die.”
This week, the CDC issued new mask guidelines for fully vaccinated individuals. The updated guidance includes recommendations for universal masking for teachers, staff and students in schools regardless of their vaccination status.
An online form to enter the “I Got Vaxxed” competition will be available for West Virginia schools beginning Aug. 15.
We continue with our summer education radio series, “Closing the COVID Gap.” In our last story, we heard from families in West Virginia who are sticking with virtual or homeschool this fall. Now, we turn our attention to high school seniors and higher education.
Last fall, less than half of West Virginia’s 2020 public high school seniors enrolled in higher education. This marked the lowest college-going rate for recent high school graduates in the state since 2000. Higher education officials say the coronavirus pandemic played some role in that drop.
Additionally, many college students struggled with mental health issues and food insecurity this past year.
Education reporter Liz McCormick spoke via Skype with West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission Chancellor and Community and Technical College System head Sarah Armstrong Tucker about the needs going forward.
Extended: State Higher Ed Officials Encourage Student Vaccinations, More Behavioral Health Support
This transcript from the original broadcast has been lightly edited for clarity.
LIZ MCCORMICK: Thank you so much, Chancellor Tucker, for joining us. Your office has made efforts this summer to allow more time for financial aid applications and allow students more time to access the assessments they need, such as the ACT or the SAT. Are there any other initiatives happening this summer that the WVHEPC or the CTC System of West Virginia is trying to spearhead? What are you and your colleagues thinking about, when it comes to these three areas: academics, financial and emotional needs of our students?
SARAH ARMSTRONG TUCKER: Sure. So, several of the colleges have set up academic bridge programs for high school seniors, because we anticipate that students aren’t going to be prepared to go to college. We know that the colleges are going to have to provide [students] with some additional supports. We’ve also talked with the colleges about just assuming that students who are incoming are going to need a significant amount of support around English and math, and just providing that support up front. We’ve talked about just assuming that every single college freshman is going to need to be in a co-requisite course, because they just haven’t had the time in school that they’ve needed to be successful as a freshman. That probably will continue for the next couple of years. The colleges are preparing to work with those students and make sure that they’re academically ready.
Behavioral health has risen to the top as has food insecurity, but we have a number of behavioral health initiatives happening here at the CTC System office that get pushed out to the institutions. But we’re also working with the West Virginia Legislature to see if there may be some additional funding that we could find, to help support our staff at the college campuses. We know that counseling staff were completely overwhelmed this year, and [schools] ended up having to find telehealth organizations that could work with the colleges and the students to help make sure that each of the student’s needs were being addressed. I don’t anticipate that going away this year, so we are actively working to try to find ways to provide those supports to the colleges.
MCCORMICK: As we are nearing the fall, what are we seeing in terms of programs and supports that will probably be sticking around for the long term?
TUCKER: Well, from a behavioral health perspective, I think, the isolation of COVID-19, and what we all had to go through during COVID-19, made mental health issues much more significant. So, if you were depressed, and you needed to be around people and needed to be able to have access to your therapist, and suddenly that all got shut down, it made it very difficult. I think all of us probably felt some level of stress and difficulty throughout this entire time. I know I certainly did. And so, you know, I don’t think that just disappears with the wave of a magic vaccine wand. That is a longterm hole that we’re going to have to be digging out of.
But in addition, and I have believed this for a while, we haven’t thrown enough resources at behavioral health for a long time. And [the pandemic] just really highlighted how important that was. And so we’re going to have to be able to identify some resources to help our college campuses do a better job of supporting our students. And let me be clear, it’s not that they don’t want to, it’s just a matter of shifting resources and priorities to make that happen.
As far as academics are concerned, I think we learned that we can do things in a virtual environment in a way that we didn’t know we could do before. So I don’t anticipate online learning going away as the end of the pandemic, but I don’t think that it is the be-all-end-all that we once thought it could be. I think we’ve learned that being together is important. Having an instructor interacting with students and having students be able to interact with one another is important. And so I don’t think we’re going to see a mass shift to online learning. But I do think incorporating more hybrid formats into the everyday college experience is very likely to continue.
MCCORMICK: Chancellor, what would be some advice that you might share with those high school 2020 graduates who may still be trying to figure out where to land after such a shake-up in their academic experience?
TUCKER: I would tell them it’s never too late to go back to college, and that they really need to be thinking about pursuing some sort of post-secondary career. You know, we know that the jobs that are out there are going to require some form of post-secondary training, whether that’s a community college or a baccalaureate degree or above. If they want to get the job that they want to have for the rest of their lives and be able to support themselves and live the lifestyle that they want to live, they’ve got to re-engage with higher education and go back to school. We have so many resources for them to be able to do that. We have more than $100 million that comes through my office, on an annual basis, that goes straight out to students to help support them in going to college. And so please, reach out to us, or reach out to your local institutions and find out what’s available. Because there are so many options in the state of West Virginia, and there’s so many good ones.
MCCORMICK: As we get ready to enter this new school year, do you know yet how things are going to look at West Virginia college campuses this fall? At both our four-years and our two-years? Do you have a sense of whether COVID-19 vaccinations will be required of students? And will masks be part of the equation at all anymore?
TUCKER: I think that as long as the vaccinations are still under an emergency use status, none of the public higher education institutions in the state of West Virginia will require vaccines. And, you know, once that emergency use status changes, then we’ll probably have a different conversation. But it hasn’t changed. And so for now, no, no one is going to require the use of the vaccine. But everyone will be encouraged, if they haven’t been vaccinated, to wear masks. I’m not sure if a [mask requirement] is going to happen at any institution. We encourage everyone to get vaccinated. The data out there just supports how important getting vaccinated is, and as you’re seeing the death toll for the Delta variant go up, you’re talking about unvaccinated people. And so we will encourage all of our faculty, all of our staff, all of our students to get vaccinated, and as the semester begins, we’ll certainly find opportunities for any student or faculty or staff member who wants to get vaccinated to do so.
This episode of “Closing the COVID Gap” originally aired on West Virginia Morning on July 14, 2021.
Last week on our summer education radio series “Closing the COVID Gap,” we spoke with a school counselor about the social-emotional needs of our students post-pandemic.
This week, we speak with West Virginia’s 2021 Teacher of the Year Erin Anderson to learn about her experience navigating the pandemic and finding peace within the disruptions.
Anderson is a 5th grade teacher at Tennerton Elementary School in Upshur County. She is also a wife and a mother to a nine-year-old daughter.
Education reporter Liz McCormick spoke with Anderson via Skype.
Extended: W.Va. Teacher Of Year Tells New Teachers Not To Give Up After Tough Year
This transcript from the original broadcast has been lightly edited for clarity.
LIZ MCCORMICK: Thank you, Erin, so much for joining us. First, congratulations on being named the 2021 West Virginia Teacher of the Year — and what a year it has been. Erin, will you talk with us first about your experience this year as a teacher and as the state’s teacher of the year working through the coronavirus pandemic?
ERIN ANDERSON: Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me. You know, I really just had a peace about the school year from the get go. I knew that eyes were on me as a finalist heading into the school year. And I knew that God was here. He was before us, with us. And He was going to be here after us. And so, I knew that He already knew how it was going to play out. And so there was no need for me to panic. Now, that’s a new characteristic that I have, to be patient. No one was going to benefit from anybody panicking. So like I said, I just had a peace about this year, and I knew that it was going to play out the way it was supposed to play out for our kids and our families.
My message to teachers early on was, we’re not being asked to do more, just to do it in a different way. Every year we ask kids to sort of jump out of their comfort zone with learning, and so this was a way for us to kind of be on the other side and see what kids had to go through. Always one of my goals is listening to understand. And so as teacher of the year, I was trying to reach out and network with teachers, really to listen — to understand what their challenges were, what some of their triumphs were. How can we create opportunities from all of this?
MCCORMICK: Erin, our series this summer, “Closing the COVID Gap,” is all about exploring how we can tackle the issues that have come up in our school systems as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic. As a teacher, and as West Virginia’s Teacher of the Year, what are some of the areas that you noticed that were the most challenging, and that now need the most attention in your opinion?
ANDERSON: I’m going to say first and foremost, we have to be careful how we approach this with kids. I’m not going to use the word ‘gap’ or ‘learning loss.’ I just believe they have a negative connotation when we’re talking to kids. We don’t really want to go there. Most of this is all still to be seen, because we’re going to be here; teachers are going to work hard to see how this all plays out.
What I did see from my kiddos this spring was a shortened attention span. You know, the stamina. We only had about 10 to 15 minutes of pure stamina by the time state testing came around. So, that was an issue in my room. I saw kids tired. I found one of the challenges was making sure I got all the content out to my kids when we were working remotely. Streamlining standards. Overlapping subjects as best I could. I think one of the challenges was just staying away from negativity. I’ve talked several times about ‘filling.’ You know, whatever you fill yourself with is what’s going to pour out whenever life knocks into you. And so, like I said, I was at peace. And I just needed to make sure that I was sharing that in a positive way, and that I was staying positive.
MCCORMICK: There are millions of dollars that are coming into our West Virginia schools through the American Rescue Plan. Specifically, a large portion of this money can be used to hire more teachers, to support current ones, to hire more school counselors, to even renovate old buildings to make them more safe in terms of COVID-19. As West Virginia’s Teacher of the Year, where do you envision some of these dollars really benefiting our 55 counties?
ANDERSON: Everybody in the room deserves attention, and so spending money on teachers is a great idea. One to 28 — that ratio — if we can get that ratio down. I’ve always said, ‘Gosh, if we could just have 12 kids in a class, imagine what we could do.’ So of course, teachers would be a great idea. If we just go back to the School Building Authority, if we go back to these lists of ‘what do these schools need?’ They’ve already done the legwork on what they need for kids.
MCCORMICK: There’s significant concern about teacher burnout, specifically this year as a result of the stressors of the pandemic. In a recent study that was released by Education Week, it found that more than 90 percent of teachers in the United States feel more stressed now than they did before the pandemic started. What might be some advice that you would give to a new teacher in West Virginia who started his or her career this year in the pandemic, and then also a teacher who’s been a longtime teacher? Both of whom may be feeling stressed and may be questioning whether or not to stay in the profession.
ANDERSON: To new teachers, I would give them the same advice I give a friend that gets a new haircut. Give it some time. It would be really hard to say yea or nay to the teaching profession this year. So my advice for new teachers is, this is such a rewarding career, and the relationships that you can build with kids and families is unlike anything else. We are the career that launches all other careers. And what I would say to seasoned teachers, teachers who’ve been teaching five years or better, this summer, do what you love. I happen to love running and, guilty-pleasure, watching The Bold and the Beautiful. I love sitting by the pool or hanging out with friends.
Soak up some professional development this summer; you’re going to want to hear what the experts are saying about, ‘do we remediate or do we accelerate? What are we supposed to do to fill in these gaps?’ You’re going to hear that all over the place. I want you to take some time to soak that in, but not too much, because we do need to unplug and take a break. We need some time for some of this to sink in and gel before we have to hit the ground running in August.
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The West Virginia Teacher of the Year program is under the West Virginia Department of Education and announced each year in the fall.
The state teacher of the year holds their title until January and is awarded $10,000 from sponsors Horace Mann and Highmark. Half of that goes to the teacher of the year’s school, while the other half can be kept for personal use. The West Virginia Lottery also awards a classroom grant of $300 to the winner.
The state teacher of the year serves on many state and nonprofit committees throughout the year, travels the state visiting different schools, and gives speeches at a variety of events, all while continuing to teach.
This episode of “Closing the COVID Gap” originally aired on West Virginia Morning on June 30, 2021.