Education Story Archives - Page 157 of 157 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Local schools take part in national afterschool program

As part of a nationwide celebration of afterschool programs, Lavalette Elementary in Wayne County took part in Lights on Afterschool, “Get up and Go” last…

As part of a nationwide celebration of afterschool programs, Lavalette Elementary in Wayne County took part in Lights on Afterschool, “Get up and Go” last week.

At nearly 9,000 schools around the country students from elementary to high school took part in the annual Lights on Afterschool program last week. Over 150 kids attended the event here at Lavalette Elementary. The students had dinner, listened to instruction and participated in STEAM related activities.

The afterschool program was sponsored by Playmates Preschools and Child Development Centers, the Wayne County Board of Education and the Afterschool Alliance. Amy Wagoner is with the Playmates Preschools and Child Development Centers and the 21st Century Wayne County Community Learning Centers program.

“Afterschool programs all over the United States are celebrating today and it’s to help raise awareness and promote afterschool programs locally within your communities and its helped raise awareness with the parents, children and community members about the importance of having safe afterschool programs to go to in your communities,” Wagoner said.

Wagoner said afterschool programs play a vital role for young students.

“The afterschool time is the high-risk time between 2 and 6, so it’s important for them to have a safe place to go afterschool and be able to have dinner or a snack and have enrichment activities, tutoring services or just a safe place to be while their parents or family members are working,” Wagoner said.

At 30 sites in Wayne County and three in Cabell County the students are taught by certified teachers who work after hours in the afterschool program. The goals of the program they say are to help raise the academic level, cut down on dropouts and to increase school attendance.

The focus during the annual Lights on Afterschool celebration, was STEAM, or Science Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. Through activity stations that had students creating robots out of Leggos, looking at rocks from prehistoric times and creating their own plastic, students touched on each of the STEAM areas. Jessica Williamson and her daughter, 4^th grader Jessalyn Perry took part in the program.

“It gives them something to do, it also helps them learn, they had different activities and different learning programs for them, so to me that’s very important as a parent to make sure that my child has something educational to do rather than being out on the street and getting into trouble,” Williamson said.

Williamson said the program teach the students in a unique and interesting way.

“It’s really neat to see how the different kids react to it, to see which ones actually enter into the different activities, because some of them will draw to the Leggo’s and some of them will draw to making homemade slime, it’s kind of neat to see which kids draw to which activity,” Williamson said.

Perry said all the activities were fun to her.

“I like to take part in the Leggo’s and the slime and the airplanes,” Perry said.

Jeanette Barker is the executive director of Playmates Preschools and Child Development Centers Inc. She said the fun atmosphere is beneficial to both the students and teachers.

“The teachers I think find it refreshing because they don’t have as many restraints and they’re not on such a tight schedule, so they’re able to do things that they might not typically be able to do during the regular day, so it motivates teachers to want to be part of the expanded learning time,” Barker said.

The Lights on Afterschool Program is in its 14^th year.

Davis & Elkins increases enrollement by 68%

Davis & Elkins College recently announced admission figures which demonstrate the College’s fifth consecutive year of increased enrollment.

Davis & Elkins College reports a total growth of 65.8 percent since 2008. The Office of the Registrar reported the official figures for the new academic year totaling 847 full-time students, 318 are new students and 529 are returning students.

The president of the College attributes the rise in enrollment to various factors including the Highlands Scholars program, recent upgrades in facilities, the highly credentialed faculty and staff, and the revision of curricular and co-curricular programs.

Recent upgrades and improvements include new $600,000 synthetic turf field and Locker Rooms, renovations to the school’s Ceramics Studio, and the addition of a dance program an arts and entertainment season for students and the public.

WV School Board members get behind the scenes look at deaf, blind schools

Some members of the West Virginia Board of Education took a tour of the Schools for the Deaf and Blind in Romney, W.Va., Wednesday. The Board’s monthly…

Some members of the West Virginia Board of Education took a tour of the Schools for the Deaf and Blind in Romney, W.Va., Wednesday. The Board’s monthly meeting took place on the campus and prior to the

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meeting members walked through the facility to see how students are educated there and what kind of renovations are needed.

WV Board of Education Chairwoman Gayle Manchin smiles as she looks at a stuffed animal on a bed in a dorm room at the state Schools for the Deaf and Blind.

Gayle Manchin, board president, was impressed with some of the rooms she saw during the tour, commenting on how cozy they looked.

One recently renovated dorm room for younger girls in the School for the Deaf has two rows of pretty white beds lining the bright room, each draped in a hot pink spread. The tour guide was Chief Financial Officer Mark Gandolfi.

“Downstairs was renovated in the last 12 months or so, this room some new furniture and we are still looking to make cosmetic upgrades in terms of carpet, you know small things, but you can see that it’s well kept,” Gandolfi said.

“Seeing the coziness of this would have to be comforting to a parent because to leave a child that young is very a very difficult choice to make,” Manchin said. “But to kind of get that feeling of just sort of how pretty everything was for their children, that has to be very encouraging and helpful for a parent trying to make that decision.”

“It’s a very nurturing environment actually,” replied Patsy Shank, School for the Deaf principal.

“For the children and our child care staff and our teachers and all of us are very nurturing people that love these children,” Shank said. “We get to know them very well over the years, there are children they come at three and you have them until they’re 21 and they take real places in our hearts.”

Shank described how everyone on the staff helps and how, whether they are teachers, aids, cooks or janitors, they enjoy working with the children.

“And if somebody sees a child that needs something on a personal level and maybe we know there are financial difficulties, it happens, the tooth fairy has left a lot of things on beds for children over the years,” Shank said.

Shank was one of several administrators who pointed out the benefits for children who attend the schools. Benefits like learning sign language and Braille, learning to navigate with a cane, or count money when they can’t see, and being around others who are like them.

“When you’re the only deaf child in a classroom in a public school and you have no peers to associate with and to be friends with and you miss those socializations that we really have isolated that child,” Shank said.

The school board members also saw some rooms that weren’t so cozy, that can’t be used because they need renovations. The ceiling in one wing of the Deaf School is leaking and Gandolfi pointed out this section of the building needs a new roof.

The area where multi-sensory education takes place however, is bright and new looking. Three children working in one of the classrooms have impaired hearing or sight as well as cognitive delays or other developmental issues. Three adults were working with the children as they learned the difference between circles and squares by holding and feeling the shapes.

The tour continued as the group crossed the campus to look at the dining hall, gymnasium and Seton Hall, which houses the cafeteria and dorm for older students. They also saw several buildings that are slated to be torn down; including one surrounded by orange security fencing that dates to the 1850’s and served as a Civil War hospital. For years the cafeteria was in this building but the brick work and foundation are deteriorated and it’s been deemed unsafe.

Blind students take classes in a building that’s separate from the Deaf School. A local artist volunteered to decorate the walls in the School for the Blind with tactile artwork, large paintings with various textures that blind students, and state school board presidents, can touch.

“Isn’t that wonderful,” Manchin said as she ran her hand over one of the murals. “That would be wonderful for any school population.”

Manchin expressed an interest in learning more about the technology used in the schools, so the group visited Donna Brown’s classroom where three students, one from Inwood, W.Va., one from Fairmont, W.Va. and one from Cabell County, W.Va., were learning to use a computer called a Braille Note. It’s a portable device that allows students to read printed material in Braille.

While some board members had visited the campus before, this was the first time they’d taken a comprehensive tour.

Later during the school board meeting Superintendent Lynn Boyer gave an update on the report she’s working on that will help the Board determine whether to keep the schools in Romney or move them to a more central location. Boyer expects the final report will lay out three options.

“One would be to remain here, the other would be to relocate but not name a location, and the third would be to disperse the services across the state,” Boyer said.

Boyer plans to present the final report during the Board of Education’s January meeting.