Lauren Shen, from Morgantown High School in Monongalia County, and Grant Kenamond, from Wheeling Park High School in Ohio County, received the honor. They are part of a group of 161 students nationwide to receive this recognition.
Lauren Shen, from Morgantown High School in Monongalia County, and Grant Kenamond, from Wheeling Park High School in Ohio County, received the honor. They are part of a group of 161 students nationwide to receive this recognition.
“West Virginia students are world-class scholars, and Lauren and Grant are exceptional ambassadors for our state,” said State Superintendent of Schools Michele L. Blatt. “These students exemplify scholarly accomplishment, excellence and a commitment to civic responsibility that is inspiring. We wish them the very best in their future endeavors.”
The students are recognized based on academic success, artistic and technical excellence, performance in career technical education, and a demonstrated commitment to ethical standards. The students will be part of an online ceremony over the summer.
The program was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson 60 years ago in 1964. One boy and one girl are picked from each state, plus D.C., Puerto Rico, and Americans living abroad. There is also a pool of 55 students who are picked for academic, artistic, and technical achievement.
Out of 3.7 million high school students set to graduate this year, nearly 6,000 students qualify for the award, but only 161 students receive the recognition of being a presidential scholar.
The West Virginia Board of Education (WVDE) issued a State of Emergency for Martinsburg North Middle School (MNMS) in Berkeley County at its monthly meeting Wednesday, citing issues with safety and academic rigor.
The West Virginia Board of Education (WVDE) issued a State of Emergency for Martinsburg North Middle School (MNMS) in Berkeley County at its monthly meeting Wednesday, citing issues with safety and academic rigor.
Jeffrey Kelley, assistant superintendent of district & school accountability, reported the results of a Targeted School Environment Assessment that discovered dozens of Title IX violations, hundreds of fights and what one teacher quoted in the report called “an air of chaos” at the school.
“The West Virginia Learning Environment Survey taken in October ‘23 revealed 53 percent of students at Martinsburg North reported feeling safe at school,” he said. “This was compared to a statewide result of 80 percent of students who reported feeling safe at school.”
Martinsburg North is one of 21 schools in West Virginia identified for Comprehensive Support and Improvement in the 2022-2023 school year. Identified schools represent the state’s lowest-performing schools and receive intensive support and technical assistance from the WVDE to address critical areas of need.
Based on 2023 West Virginia General Summative Assessment data, 24.12 percent of the school’s students were proficient in English language arts and 5.69 percent of students demonstrated proficiency in mathematics. Both these numbers represent a decrease from 2022 achievement levels and are below the statewide proficiency average for middle schools of 54.1 percent in English language arts and 47.4 percent in mathematics.
Several board members, including Victor Gabriel, expressed shock and dismay at the report.
“This doesn’t happen in West Virginia,” he said. “Evidently, we have a flaw and we’re going to make sure that flaw gets taken care of.”
The Martinsburg North report was in stark contrast to the meeting’s opening, when the board recognized three exemplary practice schools.
One school from each programmatic area was honored for illustrating outstanding school practice in one or more areas of the West Virginia Standards for Effective Schools. Sherman Elementary School in Boone County, Mountaineer Middle School in Monongalia County and United Technical Center in Harrison County were this year’s honorees.
School Consolidation
The board also approved several mergers and closures of schools in Harrison County.
Liberty High School will be merged into the existing Robert C. Byrd High School, and Mountaineer Middle School and Washington Irving Middle School will be consolidated into a new Liberty Middle School to be housed in the vacant Liberty High School building.
Board president Paul Hardesty told community members that came to speak to the board against the mergers that they are simply the latest in a growing trend of school consolidation across the state.
“Our space utilization statewide is 51 percent,” he said. “Miss Sullivan asked about the funding formula. That’s where we rise and fall in public education and lately, because of hemorrhaging enrollment, we are falling.”
Board member Debra Sullivan previously questioned the wisdom of punishing communities for an outdated school aid formula that no longer reflects the state’s population. Public school enrollment has fallen more than 10 percent in West Virginia since 2016.
On Wednesday, she expressed concern over the size of the proposed consolidated schools.
“You’ll have about 1,100 students in that school, I think it would make it the largest high school in the county,” Sullivan said in reference to the consolidated Robert C. Byrd High School.
“Are we going to revisit class sizes and classrooms and utilization at some point to reflect today’s needs?” she said. “We have students who need more support. That takes having, I think, more staff as the superintendent said, but also it means having fewer children in a classroom. Twenty-five fifth graders is hard to manage anymore.”
Phones In Schools
During board member reports near the end of the meeting, board member Christopher A. Stansbury discussed the potential of banning cell phones across all West Virginia schools.
“May being Mental Health month, one of the things that I had a request for information on is dealing with cell phone use in public schools and some of the mental health consequences that we’re dealing with,” he said.
Stansbury cited data coming out of Norway, where cell phones have been banned in most middle schools (grades 8-10) over the past 10 years.
“They found that there were fewer psychiatric consultations, they had less issues with bullying, they had higher GPAs and test scores,” he said. “Results were strongest, best for girls and then also in schools that had the strictest bans. I think that’s something that we as a board need to take a look at.”
The idea of a statewide phone ban was met with supportive comments from board members Nancy White and F. Scott Rotruck, who said he had been engaged in some independent research on the matter already.
Jobs & Hope, a West Virginia program that provides job training to residents with substance use disorders, celebrated its 500th graduates during a ceremony in Charleston Wednesday.
Community members filed into a graduation ceremony unlike any other Wednesday.
It was held in the office of Gov. Jim Justice, celebrating the graduations of Sierra Mullins and Shane McCoy — the 500th graduates of West Virginia’s Jobs & Hope program.
The program provides residents who have substance use disorders access to job training and educational resources, with the goal of helping them secure long-term employment.
Founded in 2019, the program now has 1,619 active participants across the state, and has graduated more than 508 individuals, with even more completing their programs after Mullins and McCoy.
During the ceremony, both graduates had the opportunity to share speeches, expressing gratitude for the program and pride in what they have accomplished.
Originally from Boone County, Mullins said the program provided her much-needed support during a difficult recovery process.
“The road wasn’t always easy. Monthly screenings, basic classes and maintaining sobriety,” she said. “But each hurdle was a small price to pay for the invaluable support and resources provided by the program.”
McCoy said he began his recovery journey in 2019, and soon accessed educational resources through Jobs & Hope that taught him how to operate heavy machinery.
Now, he said he has had steady employment on a construction crew since November.
“The crew that I work with, and the gentlemen that I have met at this place, it has definitely helped my growth in the field,” McCoy said.
After the graduate’s speeches, Justice expressed his gratitude for the program’s success, and his support for participants statewide.
“Lo and behold, we’ve got 508 people, that their lives have changed in every way,” he said. “God bless each and every one of you for the guts that it takes to really get this done.”
For more information on the Jobs & Hope program, visit the program’s website.
The Department of Education is launching a multimillion-dollar program to help boost the completion of FAFSA for high school students nationwide.
The Department of Education is launching a multimillion-dollar program to help boost the completion of FAFSA for high school students nationwide.
Last week Gov. Jim Justice declared a state emergency following a botched roll out of the new Free Application For Student Aid, or FASFA.
According to the governor’s office there has been a 40 percent decrease in FAFSA applications in the state. Justice said a difficult and complicated process is partially to blame.
Monday, the US Department of Education launched a program to expand availability of advisers, counselors, and coaches to help students and caregivers through the FAFSA process. It also aims to increase the hours that FAFSA support staff are available on weekends and evenings.
The department’s goal is to increase the number of high school students who complete their FAFSA.
Fifty million dollars will be available in grants to organizations that can expand college access and enrollment.
On this West Virginia Week, Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for the state’s educational system. We’ll also learn more about a group of organizations asking the state Supreme Court to side with Cabell County and Huntington in their lawsuit against opioid distributors. And we’ll hear about a South Charleston landfill listed as a Superfund site.
On this West Virginia Week, Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for the state’s educational system. We’ll also learn more about a group of organizations asking the state Supreme Court to side with Cabell County and Huntington in their lawsuit against opioid distributors. And we’ll hear about a South Charleston landfill listed as a Superfund site.
We’ll also talk about new investments in energy communities spurred by tax credits and federal programs. We’ll dive into the attorney general’s role in the state and what each candidate brings to the upcoming election. And we’ll learn about a group that works to give prisoners access to books.
Emily Rice is our host this week. Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert.
West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick and Randy Yohe.
Founded in 2004, the Appalachian Prison Book Project has mailed more than 70,000 books to people incarcerated in Appalachian prisons, with the goal of expanding access to books and educational resources.
Each week, volunteers comb through a stack of more than 200 letters on the second floor of the Aull Center, a historic twentieth-century home in Monongalia County now owned by the Morgantown Public Library.
Sent by people incarcerated across Appalachia, most of these letters contain the same request: a new book to read.
Some prisons in the United States have their own libraries, but often with narrow inventories and limited hours of operation. In turn, more than 50 organizations across the United States and Canada mail incarcerated people books missing from their library shelves.
In West Virginia, one nonprofit — the Appalachian Prison Book Project (APBP) — has distributed books throughout the region since 2004. In that twenty year span, APBP has mailed more than 70,000 books, according to Communications Coordinator Lydia Welker.
People in Appalachian prisons can submit written letters to APBP, requesting books they would like to receive through the mail, Welker said. APBP then examines each prison’s policies and connects readers with the book they requested, or one from a similar genre or subject area.
Volunteers join the project from all different backgrounds. Some are advocates for prison reform. Others, like Morgantown High School student Lilly Staples, do it from a love of books and desire to expand reading access.
Danielle Stoneberg prepares to send a book from the Appalachian Prison Book Project’s Morgantown office to an Appalachian prison.
Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“It’s a really nice space for volunteer hours,” Staples said while volunteering at the Aull Center in April. “I’ve always loved to read, and so helping, giving other people that chance in their position really means something to me.”
Still, this work can be tricky. Books with divisive or controversial content — like violence and nudity — tend to be rejected outright by facility staff.
Other rules are subjective, changing from facility to facility. Welker said one prison even refused to take in a copy of The Lord of the Rings because it had illustrations of a fictional map.
“These rules are not set in stone,” Welker said. “It’s up to the discretion of whoever’s working in the mailroom or whatever prison system it is to decide if a book gets inside.”
Occasionally, books APBP sends are rejected by prison staff. APBP keeps a running list of which books are accepted at which facility to ensure that resources are not wasted.
Welker said APBP’s most common request is a dictionary. Other widely sought-after texts include textbooks, as well as books that contain medical or legal information.
Reference books are some of the most requested items from the Appalachian Prison Book Project.
Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
For the staff at APBP, this only further exemplifies the gaps in educational resources available to people who are incarcerated.
“It goes to show how much people need access to the outside world,” she said. “Very literally, information about how this world works.”
Mass incarceration in the United States often cuts people off from books and educational resources, which makes the work of APBP and similar prison book projects important, Welker said.
In 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that 355 of every 100,000 U.S. residents were incarcerated — one of the highest rates globally.
Additionally, the national incarceration rate of Black residents was nearly five times the incarceration rate of white residents in 2022. Hispanic residents were also incarcerated at nearly double the rate of white residents nationally.
Without groups like APBP, thousands of residents — and a disproportionate number of Black residents — would lack access to reading resources.
For many staff members and volunteers, working with APBP has opened their eyes to realities like these, and the daily challenges that incarcerated people face across the United States.
Before joining APBP, mass incarceration in the United States “was never really something that seemed really direct to me,” said Danielle Stoneberg,
“It was never really something that seemed really direct to me, and kind of in my face,” Danielle Stoneberg, prison outreach coordinator, said.
Stacks of books sit on the shelves of the Appalachian Prison Book Project’s Morgantown office, ready to ship to people who are incarcerated.
Photo Credit: Chris Schulz/West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
“As I started to have these experiences of going inside and reading letters, and also just having conversations with people, … I started to realize that I have a lot more friends than I thought, who had loved ones who have been impacted by the system,” she said.
Stoneberg said prison book projects like APBP allow volunteers to acknowledge the humanity of people who are incarcerated and work to improve their lived experiences.
“Many of us who work here with APBP, we believe that individuals shouldn’t be judged for the mistake that they made. We wouldn’t want to be judged for the worst thing that we ever did,” she said. “That’s why I sit on the phone for 20, 30 minutes on hold with a prison just to get hung up on, or not get the answer that I want.”
Stoneberg said this work is an important step toward making a difference in the U.S. prison system. Now, she is encouraging others to get involved in the project, too.
“What I would tell people is go ahead and have these experiences,” she said. “See if that makes you believe in the humanity of people who are incarcerated.”
For more information on the Appalachian Prison Book Project, visit the project’s website.
