Tag: Education News

Volunteer Youth From Milton, Belleville Honored in Washington, D.C.

Two youth volunteers from West Virginia were honored in Washington, D.C. They were among 100 kids from across the country recognized for their services in their communities.

 

Some of the nation’s most outstanding student volunteers were honored with a gala dinner and reception at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and a chance to hang out with the Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker. Each also received $1,000 dollars. 

 

 

Among them, 17 year-old Katie Cowie of Milton. A senior at Cabell Midland High School, Katie raised money for several different causes by making and selling blankets through a non-profit she created called “Blossom.”

 

Olivia Smith, 14 years-old, from Belleville, was also recognized for her work as an advocate for folks in her community with disabilities. Olivia says she inspired bu her sister, who has Down syndrome, her aunt who uses a wheelchair, and her mother who is the director of a program that provides services for people with disabilities. 

State legislators concerned with head injuries

There’s been a lot of attention on how head injuries are affecting football players, and athletes, on all levels—including when they are very young. Stakeholders concerned about this issue hope new protocols will sufficiently prevent serious injuries.

Last year, the state legislature passed a measure that provides protocols for head injury protections for student athletes in West Virginia. These guidelines require coaches to have course training on head injuries and concussions, as well as being mandated to remove players from competition who are suspected of having concussions. It’s something that State Senator Ron Stollings said there’s a specific mission with these new rules.

“I think this bill is a good bill, we will see it being implemented as we speak. Me, being a volunteer physician on Friday nights, I have to take that educational piece myself. It’s a good thing,” said Stollings.

Also under the guidelines, a concussion and head injury sheet must be signed and returned by the athlete and the athlete’s parents before practice or competition begins, to make officials aware of previous injuries. If a player has been removed from a game due to a head injury, that person may not return to action until he or she has written clearance from a licensed health care professional.

Gary Ray with the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission said these new guidelines give “teeth” to his organizations, and other interested parties, in protecting students. But he says parents must also play a role.

“I was guilty when I played sports, you didn’t want to tell mom or dad because you might not get to play the next day. You’ve got to let people know, you’ve got to communicate. Mom and Dad work with their child, they need to make sure they are in constant communication with the school if they feel this is an issue,” said Stollings.

Senator Stollings said he wants to make sure that all medical professionals like him, who administer to athletes during games, are protected from excess liability issues.

“I think just basically saying that volunteer physicians while at a volunteer event, Friday night football, that you would have coverage by the Board of Risk and Insurance Management,” said Stollings. “I’d like it to be spelled out in statute, that we’re covered, a volunteer physician.”

One final requirement of the new guidelines is that when students do suffer a concussion or head injury in a practice or game, a report must be sent from the school to the WVSSAC within 30 days of the injury. The report must state whether an evaluation, done by a medical professional, verifies that a concussion has occurred. This report must also state how many days it’s been between the injury and athlete’s return to competition.

Federal cuts eliminate Tucker Co. Head Start

West Virginia’s Head Start preschool program is no longer available in every county due to federal budget cuts, state officials said Tuesday.

The federally funded program helps prepare low-income children for elementary school and also provides them with meals and health care. The programs are a legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1960s war on poverty.

But because of automatic federal spending cuts known as sequestration, 461 classroom spots were eliminated in West Virginia. There were 8,075 children enrolled in Head Start in West Virginia in the 2012 fiscal year, according to federal figures.

The cuts were put in place after Congress and the White House failed to reach agreement two years ago on a plan to cut the federal deficit. Funding for the program is provided in the form of grants to 21 local community organizations.

Traci Dalton, director of West Virginia’s Head Start Collaboration Office, told lawmakers during a legislative interim meeting that the cuts meant that the program had to be eliminated in Tucker County. Previously, all 55 West Virginia counties had Head Start programs in them.

Nationwide, more than 57,000 spots for children were eliminated. Dalton said West Virginia is better off than some other states because it offers a universal preschool program for 4-year-old children, and some of those who would have gone to Head Start likely enrolled in that program.

“We’re glad they’re being served somewhere, however there are services that are being lost to those families,” she said. “The health component, I mean, we have staff that are driving children to the dentist, taking families and making sure they’re getting their immunizations. … Those are the types of services that are being lost.”

But Dalton also warned that another round of sequestration would likely mean more cuts. So far, 80 Head Start positions have been eliminated, she said.

West Virginia Head Start programs receive about $55 million, down from $58 million before sequestration.

Dalton did not have an estimate on exactly how many children would be impacted or in which counties if sequestration continues. She said the average cost for each child enrolled in Head Start in West Virginia is about $7,200.

Dalton encouraged lawmakers to contact the state’s congressional delegation to get funding restored.

State moving toward locally grown food in schools

Up a small set of stairs and to the left sits the cafeteria at McKinley Middle School, but you don’t need the secretary’s directions to find it. At lunch time, you can hear the chatter of students as soon as you walk in the school’s front door.

McKinley houses about 350 6-8 graders who, in 20 minute shifts of about 50 or so, file into the small cafeteria, fill their trays and sit down at tables to eat.

“I’m usually scared of the school food,” said eighth-grader Mickala Wilkinson.

Reviews that are not so uncommon from your average middle school student about what’s being served in their cafeterias, but this lunch was slightly different.

“I like the apples. They actually have flavor to them,” Mickala said about halfway through her lunch.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” said sixth-grader Chase Casto. “It’s kind of nice to have freshly grown stuff from around St. Albans.”

Chase sat with his classmates and enjoyed a cheeseburger on a whole wheat bun- wheat that was grown in Preston County, along with apples from Berkeley County, lettuce from Putnam, ice cream from Kanawha and brussel sprouts from Upshur County.

Students at McKinley Middle weren’t just eating their normal Wednesday afternoon lunch. They were eating a lunch prepared from scratch with West Virginia products as a part of the state Department of Education’s Farm to School program.

“We started this initiative about three years ago,” said Executive Director of the Office of Child Nutrition Richard Goff, “where we showcase local growers, local producers and today’s menu highlighted just locally sourced food grown here in West Virginia.”

The program is similar to the Farm to Table movement becoming popular across the country. It’s about supporting local producers and providing them a stable market to sell their products, and county school systems are a very stable market.

In the last school year, more than $350,000 was spent on local products used in schools in 30 counties across the state.
Diane Miller, the child nutrition director for Kanawha County Schools and organizer of the McKinley event, said the goal is to get that number to grow.

“Farm to School for me is not just a one time event,” Miller said. “What I want to do is find longevity of the program so that I can say every single day at every single school in Kanawha, we’re going to have something fresh from a local farmer, but I have to find other farmers to be able to bring that quantity into Kanawha County.”

Finding the farmers seems to be the biggest challenge, but Miller said there’s an even bigger reward. Outside of the help the school systems can bring to the local economy, students are eating fresher, healthier foods and, perhaps most importantly, liking them.

 “The amount of work was amazing, but today you reap the benefits of it. To see these kids’ trays and to see these kids happy and just kind of excited about their lunch,” Miller said.

As for Chase, he likes the idea of tasting new foods.

Potato salad and all, Chase and the kids of McKinley Middle seemed satisfied as they emptied their trays and returned to class, as Diane Miller said, with bellies fed and ready to learn.
 

West Virginians are encouraged to read Kentucky Poet Laureate’s book

The West Virginia Library Commission is hoping folks across the state will read Kentucky Poet Laureate Frank X. Walker’s book Affrilachia.  The book is this year’s choice for the One Book, One West Virginia program.

During an appearance at the Martinsburg Berkeley County Public Library Wednesday morning Walker read Clifton 1, the first poem in the book. It tells the story of Walker and his father visiting Clifton, Ky., where his father grew up.

Walker’s parents divorced when he was about four. Walker, who is director of the African American and Africana Studies Program at the University of Kentucky, told the small audience gathered at the library that he was a teenager before he started to get to know his father well.

Walker grew up in Danville, one of 11 children raised primarily by their mother in a home in the projects, where religion and reading were emphasized. All this is reflected in Affrilachia.

“So in that poem you can hear my mother’s influence, the choir singing songs, that personal family history with the divorce and still trying to find a way to make it work,” Walker said. “That reverence for the land and this special place that was not just about land was also about water because he grew up in a place called Clifton that was at the edge of a cliff and that water was the dividing line to the next county.”

“Interesting enough the other county was the official demarcation line for Appalachia,” he said.

An old black and white photograph of Walker’s parents standing in front of a car with two of his sisters graces the book’s front cover. Walker is in the photo, barely, his hand, tinted in red, sticks out from behind one sister. He said it’s the only photo he has of his parents together.

Susan Hayden, West Virginia Library Commission adult services consultant, said everyone in West Virginia is encouraged to read Affrilachia this year.

“We want to just imagine how wonderful it would be if everyone in the state read a really wonderful book and to have a fabulous conversation about it and the connections you would make with your community members and that’s the goal of One Book One West Virginia,” Hayden said.

Hayden said for the past few years One Book, One West Virginia has collaborated with Shepherd University’s Appalachian Writer in Residence program to select a book. While Affrilachia is rooted in Walker’s Kentucky upbringing, Hayden believes West Virginians can relate to the messages it conveys.

“I think it speaks of humanness, I think it speaks to our creativity, our joys and love but hardships, our pain,” she said. “I think its universal, it talks not only to a Black Appalachian, a Black West Virginian, but also all the other races in West Virginia, its universal.”

Walker said he’s flattered that his book was chosen.

“I think that it says more about what our two states have in common,” he said. “About what the region has in common, and about this singular idea behind Affrilachia, that it kind of forces people who have accepted the stereotypes and the caricatures to really rethink what they believe and really know about the region.”

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