David Roach Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Michele Blatt Named New W.Va. Superintendent Of Schools

The West Virginia Board of Education unanimously chose Michele Blatt to become the state superintendent of schools and accepted the retirement of state superintendent David Roach effective June 30.

The West Virginia Board of Education unanimously chose Michele Blatt to become the state superintendent of schools at a special session Friday morning. She is currently the deputy superintendent of academic achievement and support and will take on the new role July 1.

Prior to the selection, the board accepted the retirement of state superintendent David Roach effective June 30.

Roach’s departure comes after a contentious board meeting June 14 where the board questioned Roach’s handling of an investigation into financial misappropriation in Upshur County Schools. The investigation is ongoing, but during the same June 14 meeting board members approved Roach’s recommendations to place Upshur County Schools under a state of emergency and state control.

Board member Debra Sullivan gave a brief statement regarding Roach’s retirement.

“I am so pleased I’ve had the opportunity to work with him while a member of the School Building Authority and as a member of the state Board of Education,” she said. “I have found him to be a person who cares deeply about West Virginia, its students, its educators and service personnel.”

Sullivan continued to say that thanks to Roach and his staff, West Virginia now has a path to increase student achievement in reading, writing and math.

Board President Paul Hardesty called Blatt’s appointment, “comfortable.”

“Talking to the board members earlier this morning, the one word, the theme seems to be comfortable. Comfortable with our decision of Michele Blatt,” he said. “She’s a proven, known commodity that can take this job July 1 and move forward for the children of West Virginia because at the end of the day, we’re all here for that reason. For the children.”

Hardesty also said that Gov. Jim Justice, First Lady Cathy Justice, legislative leaders, county superintendents and West Virginia Department of Education employees were all comfortable with Blatt.

The board will meet again in regular session July 12.

State School Superintendent To Retire At End Of Month

State Superintendent David Roach will retire at the end of the month, pending approval from the West Virginia Board of Education.

Roach’s final day is set to be June 30, less than a year after he accepted the role. Roach was appointed to the position in August 2022 after former state Superintendent Clayton Burch became the superintendent of the West Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Romney.

The announcement came shortly after a contentious board meeting Wednesday in which state board members questioned why Roach had not informed them sooner of financial mismanagement discovered in Upshur County Schools.

At one point Paul Hardesty, state board president, interrupted a procedural discussion between Roach and Samuel Pauley, school operations officer for the Department of Education.

“I don’t mean to cut you off but this is getting quite nauseating,” Hardesty said. “You all had in depth meetings yesterday. Why didn’t you have this conversation with him yesterday?”

Hardesty continued and said that reporting on Upshur County Schools’ issues was not following the board’s normal process, with questions being discussed in a public meeting that should have been resolved before being brought to the Board of Education.

“I’m going to try to be professional, be diplomatic, but I have never seen anything of this nature in my whole 30 year education career,” Hadesty said. “This is bush league.”

The state board will meet in special session on June 23 to discuss the retirement and appoint a new state superintendent.

State Board of Education Hears Numbers, Next Steps To Address School Discipline

Since the return to classrooms after COVID-19, parents, teachers and education leaders across the country have reported a rise of disciplinary issues in schools. A new resource should help create a greater understanding of the emerging issue.

During the Dec. 14 meeting of the West Virginia Board of Education, State Superintendent David Roach directed the West Virginia Department of Education to expand the scope and depth of the July 2022 School Discipline Report to address issues more effectively and develop a plan moving forward.

At Wednesday’s BOE meeting the creation of a public, statewide dashboard to promote transparency and accountability around school discipline was announced.

Drew McClanahan, state Department of Education director of instructional leadership and school improvement, said the dashboard will help all community members better understand where and how school discipline is occurring.

“This one dashboard will give community members, will give parents, will give everyone the opportunity, to see at the county level even at the school level, what types of discipline interventions are being provided,” he said. “Are we seeing that 80 percent of our students are being suspended? Are we seeing that 66 percent of the time that a student is referred for discipline, they’re put in school suspension? That’s important for our parents. It’s important for our administrators as well because we should be the largest advocate for transparency as we can.”

McClanahan identified four aspects of the state’s response to issues of discipline and disproportionate suspension: training and support, accountability pieces, policy requirements, and responsibility. He said that classroom management training will continue to be offered, as well as school culture training, across the state.

“I think it’s important for next steps that we continue these conversations, that we continue to find the questions,” he said. “Do we have disproportionate numbers? It appears as though we have disproportionate numbers. Why is that? What’s going on? Why are we seeing these issues?”

Georgia Hughes-Webb, state Department of Education director of data analysis and research, presented statewide school discipline data to the Board of Education. One of the biggest takeaways she had from her analysis of the data was the number of instructional days students were losing to suspension and other disciplinary actions.

“As a consequence of those incidents, there were almost 67,000 suspensions given to 28,702 students. For those suspensions both in school and out of school, our students lost almost 178,000 instructional days,” Hughes-Webb said. “Each student who was suspended lost on average six instructional days in the classroom.”

Hughes-Webb also said the data showed significantly higher rates of suspension for Black and foster care students.

“When we look at our foster care students, they lost 9.2 days of instruction due to suspension on average,” she said.

The data showed a similar rate of lost instructional days for Black students, who are disproportionately suspended.

“Black students account for 4 percent of our population, but they also represent 16 percent of all students who were suspended for more than 10 days,” Hughes-Webb said. “So that’s quite a discrepancy.”

The data was not exclusive to suspensions, although according to the presentation 56 percent of disciplinary referrals in the state result in a suspension. Hughes-Webb also looked at rates of formal discipline generally and went on to show that Black and other students of color were more likely to be disciplined than their white peers.

“Although 19 percent of all students were referred for disciplinary incidents last year, 31 percent of our Black or African American students were referred for disciplinary incidents,” she said. “Twenty-four percent of our multiracial students were referred, compared to about 18 percent of our white students.”

Board member Debra Sullivan called the presentation a blueprint and an opportunity to change the dynamic around school discipline.

“That’s going to take a change in perspective,” she said. “Now it’s nobody’s fault. Everybody’s problem. Everybody has to get involved, not just our schools but our families, our businesses, our health care providers.”

Superintendent David Roach pointed towards Communities in Schools as a likely partner in reforming disciplinary issues.

“They make the difference, they make the connection. Teachers can’t make that home connection. They try but they can’t. A counselor can’t do it,” Roach said. “That coordinator can tie in all the agencies, everything, get their visit to home and find the problem and help build a relationship with the school.”

Senate Education Committee Advances Bill On Early Childhood Literacy

State education leaders are pushing for early childhood intervention in schools to ensure literacy. Those efforts are now starting to move through the legislature.

State education leaders are pushing for early childhood intervention in schools to ensure literacy. The renewed focus comes after state and national test results in 2022 showed steep declines in reading and math scores. Those efforts are now starting to move through the legislature.

The Senate Education Committee took up Senate Bill 274 Thursday morning. The bill, titled the “Third Grade Success Act,” enacts several changes to how literacy is taught from Kindergarten through third grade, which is considered a crucial period for lifetime reading skills.

Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, initially expressed concern that the legislation was not in line with what teachers in classrooms actually wanted or needed, and lacked a focus on math, but was convinced by the day’s discussion.

“We’ve been talking about really transforming how we teach reading to children in West Virginia,” he said. “Clearly, we’ve identified there’s a problem. And we want to look for a solution. And this legislation is designed to do that.”

Oliverio also serves on the Senate Finance Committee where Senate Bill 274 heads next. He hopes to get more perspective on the bill’s proposals from teachers between committee meetings.

“Then on finance with that positive feedback that I hope I receive, and what appears to be success in other jurisdictions around the country, I’ll be supportive of funding this initiative, and really recognizing that there are few things more important, if any, than making sure that our children are learning and maturing properly,” Oliverio said.

State Superintendent David Roach has been championing early childhood literacy as a core component of the Department of Education’s “Ready, Read, Write West Virginia” initiative. He said he was pleased to see the legislature take action on the issue.

“I think it’s wonderful for our children, I think it gives help to our teachers,” Roach said. “We’re going to be asking to implement the science of reading. We will be training our paraprofessionals. Our teachers will also be thrilled because they’ll have a partner trying to help the students, because we have a wide range of students coming into the classroom, and I think it’d be a great success with their addition.”

A key component of the legislation, and Roach’s approach to early literacy, is to increase individual intervention by bringing more aides and reading coaches into the classroom. The bill also aims to reduce class sizes and redefine the acceptable ratio of instructors and students in a classroom.

“It’s so critical for our children to read to be successful. And without being able to read proficiently, we are really kind of shutting doors on their future, and I think every child deserves an open door,” Roach said.

“I’m excited. The science of reading actually shows the brain changing. There’s evidence that the components of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, plus writing changes the pathway in the brain, and our children can read.”

Superintendent Roach said Senate Bill 274 represents a collaboration between the Department of Education, the Legislature, and the governor.

“It takes all of us, the whole state, our agencies that come together to make this happen, and for it to be successful, because our agency alone cannot do it,” he said. “It takes truly the whole state.”

Although literacy is his first priority, Roach said the Department of Education will present a similar improvement plan for mathematics this spring.

State Superintendent Outlines New Literacy Campaign

The West Virginia Board of Education held its final meeting of the year Wednesday morning, and was presented with a new plan.

The West Virginia Board of Education (WVBOE) held its final meeting of the year Wednesday morning, and was presented with a new plan.

State Superintendent of Schools David Roach spent more than 30 minutes outlining the state’s new literacy campaign, called ‘Ready, Read, Write West Virginia’ to aggressively address low academic achievement across the state.

“As I’ve said before, our task is not only to improve our West Virginia education system to levels before the pandemic, but also to take bolder action to elevate and lead the nation in our work,” Roach said. “We know it all begins with literacy, and students who cannot read become adults who struggle to succeed. Literacy and reading have an immeasurable impact.”

West Virginia had some of the lowest math and reading scores in the nation on the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, released in October.

Roach outlined eight actions the West Virginia Department of Education will take as part of the campaign. They include expanding career technical programs into middle school, a renewed focus on recruiting, supporting and retaining teachers and principals and building relationships at the state and local levels.

“It must be a part of our culture, as a department of education, as county boards of education, as individual schools, local communities, and as a state as a whole. This is a job beyond the ability of one state agency,” he said. “Instead, we must all work together to make literacy a priority. I am committed to working with anyone willing to support the crucial work of what we’re trying to do.”

Since his appointment in August, Roach has made a return to educational fundamentals a priority.

“When you appointed me to this position, we agreed on a common vision and goal for public education. We needed to get back to the basics of teaching, we needed to focus on reading, writing and math. And we had to do it with purpose and with urgency.”

According to Roach, the ‘Ready, Read, Write West Virginia’ will also implement and expand existing state programs, like First Lady Cathy Justice’s ‘Communities in Schools’ (CIS) initiative.

“We always talk about the overload that the teacher has, they have to have the basic needs met of the student, before they can even learn, and CIS does that,” he said. “That’s what we need in every school that helps the principal and our teachers to teach and take things off their plate.”

Clayton Burch To Serve As New Superintendent Of W.Va. Schools For Deaf, Blind

West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch is now the new superintendent of the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind, after stepping aside as the chief of the state's school system.

At the August meeting of the West Virginia Board of Education, board members, including newly appointed Board President Paul Hardesty, voted unanimously to approve Burch’s request to become the new superintendent of the Schools for the Deaf and the Blind in Romney.

There was no discussion following the vote.

Burch released a statement, however, later in the day, outlining his 13 years working in the Department of Education, his more than two years as state superintendent, and a vision for the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind:

“One project stands out as especially dear to me. The students of the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind (WVSDB) and the work of that venerable institution are always at the forefront of my mind. I have developed a special connection with the school. From the beginning of my administration until this very moment, I have made the WVSDB a priority. My team and I have been a consistent presence on campus to work through the challenges that exist – from facilities to services and instruction and more, we continue to give the WVSDB a level of support it has not had in many years.

I have a vision of what the WVSDB can become as a resource to serve children and families of our state, region, and beyond. All of the foundational elements have been laid, but they need the commitment of a full-time leader and visionary to solidify the work and see it to completion. I believe that the totality of my career, and my close ties to the Hampshire County community, including my personal residence there, have made me uniquely qualified to lead the school into the future.”

Burch’s full statement can be read on the West Virginia Department of Education’s (WVDE) website.

Burch will receive an annual salary of more than $142,000 in the new role, which is a pay cut from his current salary at around $230,000.

Last year, the Schools for the Deaf and the Blind came under scrutiny for several areas of non-compliance, including student care, instruction, and finances. Burch has been a longtime advocate for improving the schools.

In February, a historic administrative building on the campus was destroyed in a fire. While the building was unoccupied, it housed the technology servers that powered the campus internet, phones and surveillance system.

Burch and other state officials traveled to the site and worked, with support from Gov. Jim Justice and Frontier Communications, to get a temporary fix in place so students could continue with classroom instruction.

Burch has served as West Virginia Superintendent of Schools since February 2020.

David Roach, executive director of the West Virginia School Building Authority, will take on the state superintendent role. No plans for a superintendent search were announced.

In a news release from the WVDE, Roach said he is honored to be the next state superintendent.

“I want to thank President Hardesty and the board members for their confidence in me,” Roach said. “I look forward to working with him, the board, and the staff at the West Virginia Department of Education. With the exception of student safety, student achievement has always been at the forefront of every position I have held. As a lifelong educator, I am grateful for this opportunity and look forward to starting this new position.”

Roach is a graduate of Marshall University with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and a Master of Administration in School Administration.

He will be the 33rd West Virginia Superintendent of Schools.