Department of Education Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

No $465M COVID-19 Education Funds Clawback Justice Says

Gov. Jim Justice announced Friday that West Virginia will not face a clawback of $465 million in COVID-19 money from the U.S. Department of Education, alleviating concerns raised by state lawmakers during the final days of the legislative session in March.

The Republican governor said in a statement that federal officials approved the state’s application for a waiver for the money, which was a portion of the more than a billion dollars in federal aid the state received to help support students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to receive the money, the state needed to keep funding education at the same or a higher level than before the pandemic. In other words, the federal money could supplement existing state investment in education but not replace it.

For federal spending packages passed in 2020 and 2021, that meant a dollar-for-dollar match. For 2022 and 2023, the federal government examined the percentage of each state’s total budget being spent on education.

Those regulations were waived for West Virginia in 2022. As lawmakers worked to finish the state budget in March at the close of the session, the state had not been approved for a waiver for 2023.

The question threw the state’s budget process into disarray and caused uncertainty in the days before the 60-day legislative session, with lawmakers saying they would pass a “skinny budget” and reconvene to address unfinished business in May, when the financial situation is clearer.

Justice said then that his office was negotiating with the federal government and that he expected a positive resolution, citing funds dedicated to school service and teacher pay raises each year since 2018 — when school employees went on strike over conditions in schools.

On Friday, he praised the federal government’s decision, and he said he was never concerned the waiver wouldn’t be approved.
“This announcement came as no surprise and was never a real issue,” Justice said.

He also said the state has dedicated money to building projects and putting teaching aides in classrooms to improve math and reading skills. The state said it spent $8,464 per K-12 pupil in 2024, compared with $7,510 during Justice’s first year as governor in 2017, according to documents submitted to the federal government.

But because state spending increased overall — from $4.9 billion in 2017 to $6.2 billion in 2023 — the percentage marked for education decreased. The key metric eliciting pause from the federal government was an 8% decrease in the education piece of the budget pie — from 51% in 2017 to 43% last year.

Justice said the state’s investment in education speaks for itself: State leaders also approved $150 million for the state’s School Building Authority in the state budget for the fiscal year starting in July.

Conference Aims To Help Teachers Teach Troubled Students

School mental health professionals from across the state had the opportunity to learn how to address mental health challenges and more in their classrooms.

The state Department of Education hosted a conference in Charleston to raise awareness of trauma, opioid addiction, and mental health challenges in schools, and to provide teachers, school counselors and other professionals with tools and strategies to address these issues.

The Student Support Conference is being held Nov. 29 through Nov. 30 at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.

David Lee is the director of student support and wellbeing for the West Virginia Department of Education. He said teachers, and especially new teachers, aren’t always equipped to handle what they see in a classroom.

“So how do I know what to look for, for the emotional problems of a child? How do I address those issues? How do I learn to de-escalate situations in my classroom?” Lee said.

The conference is a chance to support professionals who are working in schools by teaching them ways to identify and address mental health and trauma in their students to better help them succeed in school and life.

“We’re dealing with kids that are coming from very difficult situations at home, and they’re walking in school, and we’re expecting them to just be normal, and that’s not possible with some of the situations that they are facing,” Lee said. “So how do we address that? How do we work with the counselors? How do we work with communities and schools?”

According to Lee, student mental health issues continue to rise because of the ongoing opioid epidemic in the state and recovery from the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve got to start teaching behaviors because we got kids that come to school that have no clue about behaviors,” Lee said. “Did COVID have a lot to do with that? It did, yes. But we’ve had these problems before. They’ve been masking a lot of ways, but now they are really showing their true colors right now, because of the isolation that kids went through.”

Lee said he hopes this training makes teachers proactive in their classrooms and teaches them to act instead of react to potential behavioral issues that may arise from problems at home.

“You’re not gonna solve all the problems in high school right now, that’s not going to happen,” Lee said. “But you’ve got to start a building block and I really think in the K through three, teaching those behaviors, modeling those behaviors and what it should be like, is a good foundation.”

W.Va. School Bus Driver Shortage: Bus Routes Canceled, Parents Scrambling

Statewide, there’s about 4,000 buses and 2,900 drivers.

A continuing West Virginia school bus driver shortage has bus routes being canceled daily and parents scrambling to get their children to school.

Eric Keesecker is the executive director of the Berkeley County Schools transportation department. The county has 240 bus routes that need to be covered twice a day, every school day. Keesecker said he’s canceling at least three routes daily, each route averaging 50-55 students. He said it’s the worst he’s seen in his 17 years on the job.

“We have 15 vacancies that we start off with every day,” Keesecker said. “We have a few substitutes and most of those are retired bus drivers that only want to work a couple of days a week, so basically we have zero substitutes.”

Before the school year started, Raleigh County Schools Transportation Director Greg Betkijian developed a series of problems. He said he had unusually low numbers in summer bus driver classes, several drivers that left for other opportunities and the usual retired bus drivers that filled in the gaps weren’t coming forward this year.

“We had urgent illnesses and other medical issues as well,” Betkijian said. “It was like a perfect storm. We have about 120 bus routes each day. We don’t have a full list of full-time drivers, and we don’t have a full list of subs either. There’s about five or six runs every day that we’re not going to be able to cover, and that’s if everybody works every day.”

Keesecker said Berkeley County parents on canceled bus routes have stepped up.

“A lot of parents have developed a carpooling system to get the kids to school,” he said. “However, if there isn’t a ride for that child, then the child stays home, and they get their work for the day off of our website.”

Betkijian said other Raleigh County bus drivers try to pick up second routes, but that creates confusion.

“Especially for the younger grades,” Betkijian said. “A lot of the elementary kids, they know they ride a certain bus number. If another bus picks them up, it creates some confusion for the child which, in turn, creates confusion for the parents.”

David Baber is transportation director for the West Virginia Department of Education. He said statewide, there’s about 4,000 buses and 2,900 drivers. Baber said he did like what he heard about the Berkeley County parent carpools.

“At least we’re getting the students to school that way,” Baber said. “I don’t know what we could do at the state level to do anything about that.”

All agree what would help recruit and retain is a pay raise. West Virginia school bus drivers with a CDL license make about $25,000 a year. Keesecker said they can make triple that in the private sector.

“There are so many manufacturers and companies that have come into this area, not just Berkeley County, across the state line in Maryland and Virginia,” Keesecker said.”We’re all fighting for the same labor pool.”

The issue isn’t unique to border counties, and Barber said the state Department of Education continues to push the West Virginia Legislature for needed bus driver pay raises. But he said the challenge goes beyond that.

“We are losing or have lost people to other industries,” Barber said. “We don’t have people beating the door down to get in here anymore like we used to. It’s just a different time that we’re in. We’ve got to figure this out. ”

Baber said a critical shortage of school bus mechanics continues as well.

“They’re going to higher paid jobs,” Baber said. “Some counties want their mechanics to also drive school buses and some don’t want to do that. We have them leaving left and right as well.”

Betkijian did say in Raleigh County, some things are looking up.

“We do have two classes going on right now,” Betkijian said. “We will see five or six folks come out of those classes very soon and become bus drivers for us. I think there is light at the end of the tunnel. Our cancellations each week are trending downward. I don’t know what the answer is, but we’re going to keep recruiting and keep training and see if we can overcome this problem.”

W.Va. Teachers Learning To Teach Science Of Reading

Hundreds of southern West Virginia teachers gathered in Charleston this week, learning how to best improve student literacy.

Hundreds of southern West Virginia teachers gathered in Charleston this week, learning how to best improve student literacy by implementing the West Virginia Department of Education’s (WVDE) “Ready Read Write” initiative.

Grade school teachers at the state’s Invest 2023 education symposium are getting back to the “science of reading” basics. The initiative comes from a body of research going back 40 years that incorporates five pillars, known as the “fab five” – phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, that prove how the brain learns to become a proficient reader and writer. The program focus will be initially on kindergarten through 3rd grade studies.

The effort comes from new legislation titled the Third Grade Success Act. House Bill 3035 was passed in answer to West Virginia reading and math test scores that were among the lowest in the country. Some educators, like Senate Education Committee Chair, and fourth grade teacher, Amy Grady, R-Mason, said it would take years for West Virginia teachers to learn a new method. Nearly all the teachers we talked to said the “Ready Write Read” science of reading initiative was already in place and just needed an across-the-board boost. The math initiative is called “Math4life, UNITe with numeracy.”

Webster County kindergarten teacher Jenny Cogar said the read and write program doesn’t reinvent the wheel but builds background knowledge and vocabulary for her rural students.

“They might not have the experiences that other students that might live in the cities might have,” Coger said. “I think it will help with not only reading scores but give them the skills that they’re going to need later on in life.”

A row of teachers in “Ready, Read, Write” class. Randy Yohe/WVPB

Greenbrier County fourth grade teacher Todd Warnick said implementing the science of reading will raise instructional levels, similar to his previous North Carolina school’s reading and writing instruction.

“The program we used was exactly where we’re at today, five years later,” Warnick said. “I saw good results there. I’m glad to see the state moving that way because we saw students that were reading ahead of grade level. And it was a wonderful experience to see these developing readers become good readers with the science of reading that we were using at that time.”

Nicholas County fourth grade teacher Delia Tinney said the program will be easily implemented because it makes sense.

“Students need to write to be able to read,” Tinney said. “It’s something that a lot of teachers do. It just now has a name.”

West Virginia Department of Education “Ready Read Write” coordinator Kelly Griffith said the best practices initiative is in contrast to ineffective practices that may still be existing, because of remnants of other reading movements. She says there may be a learning curve for some teachers, but all teachers are getting the needed training.

“The goal is to make sure that our teachers have the resources and the tools that they need for best and most effective practices with the science of reading,” she said.

Griffith said with three to five years of “fidelity” (to reproduce similar results) of 80 percent or higher, “Ready Read Write” will have an impact on students.

State BOE Adjusts Teacher Licensing Requirements, Lifts Lincoln State Of Emergency

The West Virginia Board of Education (BOE) waived some of the minimum professional licensing requirements for prospective teachers Wednesday to help them eventually become fully licensed and enter the workforce.

The waivers adjust some of the minimum requirements in current BOE policy – specifically with regards to Policy 5202, which outlines said requirements for licensure, and Policy 5100, which outlines the process for educator preparation program approval.

It allows student and resident teachers who haven’t scored high enough on their content praxis exams to work in a supervised placement. The teachers must still maintain a minimum grade point average and attempt the exam at least twice.

Office of Certification director Robert Hagerman says the idea is to allow those who might be struggling with the exams more time.

“We’re giving these individuals the ability to be in the classroom while they’re honing their skills, to be able to acquire additional skills to be successful in completing those requirements, or demonstrate those requirements in a different way with those multiple measures,” Hagerman said.

If they’re unable to pass the content exam during the placement, teachers can still work under a temporary license. They would have to pass either the exam or their teacher performance assessment by the end of the year to make it permanent.

Also addressed during the meeting was the state of Lincoln County Schools, with the BOE moving to remove the state of emergency in the county.

The board initially issued a state of emergency in November 2020, and has extended it three times, most recently in July of 2022. An initial review found students were below average in math and reading.

The state of emergency was lifted after a progress report and recommendation from Matt Hicks, the West Virginia Department of Education’s Director of Accountability.

“It’s not time to get complacent for Lincoln County,” Hicks said. “The focus on academic achievement still needs to be at the forefront of all decision making in Lincoln County Schools. They’ve been doing a nice job addressing academic achievement but they still have a very long way to go. I don’t want this presentation to state that they are exactly where they need to be.”

He cited the creation of a curriculum team and instructional coach positions, protocols for new Individualized Education Programs, addressing short-term facilities needs like the replacement of HVAC systems, and long-term projects like the construction of a new school in the Duval area as reasons for the status to be lifted.

Alongside the Lincoln County update, the BOE also heard a report on the Clay County Board of Education. This followed a special circumstance review of the agency after the contract with the county’s former superintendent was terminated. Nine findings and three noncompliances were discovered, according to the report.

State Scores Low On National Report Card

West Virginia’s math and reading scores are some of the lowest in the nation, but data released by the U.S. Department of Education Monday shows academic decline across the country.

West Virginia’s scores fell across the board on the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the first nationwide measurement of learning since the pandemic.

The assessment, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, continually assesses what students in the United States know, particularly reading and math in the 4th and 8th grades.

In reading, the state’s average 4th grade score was 11 points below the national average, while the 8th grade average was 10 points below. These were the third and second lowest reading score averages in the nation, respectively.

In mathematics, West Virginia’s 4th grade scores were 9 points below the national average, while 8th grade scores were 13 points below, the country’s sixth and fourth lowest averages, respectively.

In all four assessments, West Virginia was at least six points below its own average on the 2019 NAEP.

Ebony Walton, a statistician and analyst with the National Center for Education Statistics, said one of the biggest factors for student outcomes during the pandemic was access to resources.

“What we saw was, particularly for lower performing students, they had a hard time accessing materials online, they had a hard time having a computer available to them at all times, they even had some difficulty having access to a teacher every day compared to their higher performing peers,” she said.

Walton stressed that declines in educational outcomes are not unique to West Virginia and will require a broad response.

“There’s so much that’s happening underneath that average that’s worth investigating,” she said. “I want to encourage everyone to keep moving forward so hopefully your communities can build and not just get to where they were before the pandemic but move beyond that.”