Graduation Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

First Parents Graduate From Boone County Family Treatment Court

Normally, Boone County Circuit Judge William Thompson holds his drug court graduation ceremonies inside the courthouse.

But on a slightly overcast August afternoon, he found himself and the first two graduating members of his family treatment court outdoors at Waterways Park in Boone County.

The water slides and pool were shut down to limit the spread of the coronavirus, but a picnic area by the walking trails was still open for those who wanted to gather and celebrate at a safe distance from one another.

Boxed lunches were stacked on a table off to the side, so attendees didn’t have to mingle to eat. Most people were wearing cloth face masks, and several brought their own lawn chairs.

Boone County Circuit Judge William Thompson speaks at a graduation ceremony on August 12, 2020, for his family treatment court.

“A lot of times my favorite part of graduation is the cake that comes with it,” Thompson told his audience Tuesday – a mix of state and local court officials, lawmakers, employees from child protective services and other members of his family treatment program. “Unfortunately, we can’t do cake with the pandemic. So, you do have an individual cookie.”

Family treatment court works like adult and juvenile drug court, but instead of offering recovery as an alternative to jail time, family treatment court is designed to help parents dealing with addiction avoid permanently losing custody of their children.

The parents who join the program work with a team of experts who not only connect participants to recovery resources, but introduce them to employment opportunities and educational programs for parenting and continued recovery. Parents also get regular, supervised visits with their children until they’re ready for reunification.

“They love their child, and they want to do what they can to get their child back in their home and be a mom and dad,” Thompson said. “They want to be able to provide a home for that child.”

Sabrina Ward speaks at her graduation ceremony for family treatment court in Boone County on August 12, 2020.

That includes parents like Sabrina Ward and her partner Matt Blackshire, who graduated Tuesday. They entered family treatment court in October for their daughter Adalynn, who they had lost custody of earlier that month due to addictions to methampetamines.

The program wasn’t easy. There were a lot of requirements, like weekly meetings with the judge, visits from child protective services, several weekly drug screenings and parenting classes.

Ward relapsed in November – but today, she’s been substance free for more than nine months. Both her and Blackshire also found jobs through the program.

“I was tired of that life,” she said in remarks to the audience at her graduation. “Since I have been sober, I’ve been able to pay off all my debt. I’ve bought things I want, Matt bought a car, I buy things for my child when I want and I started working at my first job ever.”

Although Adalynn returned home to her parents in April with regular supervision from the court, many parents in the program only saw their kids over video conferencing for months, due to guidance from the Department of Health and Human Resources that Child Protective Services temporarily halt in person visits for the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Thompson, what helped his participants the most at that time was the bonds they made with other parents in the program.

“I was not counting on them building a community with each other,” Thompson said. “They were all supportive. They all wanted the same main goal, which was to get their families back, which is something you don’t always see in adult drug court or even juvenile drug court.”

Going forward, as other participants graduate and the Boone County program grows, Thompson said he’d like to increase the communication and sense of community between parents.

Ward plans on creating an alumni group.

Family treatment court is active in four other counties – Nicholas, Roane, Ohio and Randolph – through grants from the West Virginia Office of Drug Control Policy. During Tuesday’s graduation, state Supreme Court Justice Tim Armstead announced more ODCP funding will be used to open family treatment courts in Braxton, Logan and McDowell counties.

The Boone County family treatment court – the first of its kind of West Virginia – received a three-year grant in 2019 for nearly $600,000 from the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Emily Allen is a Report for America corps member.

High School Graduations — A Balancing Act Between Tradition And Pandemic

High schools throughout the United States and in West Virginia have had to reimagine graduation for the Class of 2020. Many have already had drive-through, or drive by, graduations, some have done virtual ones, and others hold out hope to also have some sort of traditional ceremony later this summer.

For about 18,000 high school seniors in West Virginia, the final semester of their student career was turned upside down because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“You got those last couple months taken away from you. We didn’t realize we were never going back,” said Oak Hill High School senior Marcayla King. “We didn’t think that we weren’t ever going to see each other again, or at least until graduation … We couldn’t use those last couple months to spend time and make memories and stuff.”

When the governor closed schools for good for the rest of the semester, it quickly became clear: No prom or big senior parties. But what about graduation?

Schools across the state are trying to get creative: Some schools asked students and their family members to drive up to a designated location to receive a diploma in cap and gown and snap a picture or two.

Ripley High School in Jackson County held a parade for its 2020 graduates, announcing their names and future plans on a loudspeaker on the main drag Downtown.

And King’s high school, like some others in West Virginia, had a drive-through graduation. School officials personally delivered all diplomas to everyone’s house. And the school plans to have a traditional graduation ceremony outside later this summer.

“They’re going to have us seated six feet apart, and they’re going to broadcast it live and stuff, too, so like, parents can hear it and see it,” King said.

At the end of March, the West Virginia Department of Education created a Graduation Task Force to survey all 55 county school boards and figure out what a 2020 graduation in a pandemic could look like.

“Our goal with the task force was to really pay attention to what people wanted to do with their senior graduations,” said Jan Barth, assistant superintendent of schools, division of teaching and learning. “And we were trying to figure out ways to make sure that they had a face to face graduation if the pandemic would allow for that.”

Barth, who’s also a member of the task force, said the consensus from the beginning was to hope and plan for something traditional later in the summer. And she said the majority of high schools in West Virginia are doing that.

“I think a lot of people got good ideas about how to do it as traditionally as they possibly can, within the guidelines of the CDC requirements and the governor’s guidelines,” she said.

Those guidelines include social distancing, wearing masks and gloves, and having hand sanitizer available.

But these guidelines aren’t mandatory, and Barth said how the graduations were shaped was ultimately decided on by the local county school boards and school districts.

A staff member reaches into a vehicle to deliver a diploma at Martinsburg High School’s drive-through graduation on May 26, 2020. The majority of faculty and staff did not wear protective equipment to combat the coronavirus.

During some of the recent drive-through graduations, not every school followed these guidelines to the letter.

Take Martinsburg High School in Berkeley County.

During its drive-through graduation, many students teared up or cheered as they got out of their vehicles. Family members looked on from their cars taking photos and honking horns. Teachers stood together up the street waving the school colors and hitting cowbells.

“We wanted to celebrate the students on the day they would have graduated,” said Principal Trent Sherman.

But something was missing from almost all of the staff members — protective gear to fight the coronavirus — including Principal Sherman, who shook hands with nearly every student while not wearing gloves or a mask.

Teachers stand together up the street to cheer students as they drive by during Martinsburg High School’s drive-through graduation on May 26, 2020.

Before the event, Sherman said he didn’t have any health concerns for the evening, because the area was open and outside.

“We got open air, “ he said, “it’s nice out here; a little bit warm, but I think it will be good.”

And Martinsburg High School wasn’t alone in these lax practices.

Jan Barth said she was aware that some schools weren’t following guidelines strictly. She said her team provided all manner of guidelines for schools to follow, but at the end of the day — they’re only guidelines.

“This is not state code. It’s not state policy. It’s a local school district decision and they have all the information they need,” she said. “They had the social guidance information that they needed from the governor’s office.”

Some staff members at Martinsburg High School did wear face coverings during the drive-through graduation on May 26, 2020.

Since early May, Gov. Jim Justice has been slowly reopening West Virginia’s economy. And while the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources says we remain below the case rate that would require the state to start closing again, there are still new cases of COVID-19 being discovered every day across the state.

In Berkeley County, where Martinsburg High is located, coronavirus testing has recently become more available to the public, and the number of positive cases has grown from roughly 25 per week to between 40 and 50 new cases each week. That’s according to Dr. Terrence Reidy, health officer for the Berkeley-Morgan County Health Department and the Jefferson County Health Department.

Berkeley County has also seen the highest number of positive coronavirus cases in the state.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” said Dr. Reidy over Skype. “That either the masks aren’t important, or I don’t have to worry about it, or that this is not a real virus, and it’s not really deadly. And that’s just not true.”

Reidy cautioned that as things continue to reopen, the way we interact with one another must change to limit the spread of the virus.

Reidy acknowledges that social change is hard, but he said if people don’t make the effort to take precautions, things will only get worse — especially in the Eastern Panhandle.

“To me, this is still the first wave coming in from Baltimore and Washington,” he said. “It’s not so much the wave, as the tide coming in. We know that every week or so they’re going to be more and more cases. And it may change a little bit, but with time it’s going to increase.”

As some high schools in West Virginia begin moving forward with traditional graduations, state officials are urging staff and students to be conscientious of others, to follow social distancing guidelines, and to wear a mask when inside a public space or when in close proximity to others.

Parkersburg High School Principal Says He Accidentally Plagiarized Ashton Kutcher Speech

A West Virginia principal accused of plagiarizing Ashton Kutcher in an address to his school’s graduating class says he didn’t mean to use someone else’s work.

The News and Sentinel reports Parkersburg High School Principal Kenny DeMoss issued a statement Wednesday saying he should have cited his sources in the May 23 speech, but asserted the “thoughts and ideas” were his own.

A graduate posted a video to Facebook that spliced DeMoss’ speech with Kutcher’s 2013 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards speech and has since amassed over 100,000 views. The speeches used similar wording and at times featured identical phrasing.

DeMoss says he’s upset the speech has stolen the focus from graduating students. Wood County Schools Superintendent Will Hosaflook says it is a personnel matter that’s under investigation.

May 31, 2008: Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy Graduates Last Class

The Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy in Wheeling graduated its last class of students on May 31, 2008.

Bishop Richard Whelan founded the school in 1848 after encouraging eight Visitation Sisters from Baltimore to establish the Wheeling Female Academy. During the 1840s, scores of Catholic Irish immigrants were pouring into the Wheeling area to work on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The school was initially located in downtown Wheeling but in 1865 moved to a new building on the former Steenrod farm, three miles outside the city.

Until 1982, Mount de Chantal was a boarding school, known for its strong academic and fine arts programs. Declining enrollment and financial support led to the school’s closing in 2008, ending 160 years of education at the Mount.

Architecturally, the Mount de Chantal building was a good example of eclecticism with ‘‘Mission’’ style features. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

After the school closed, Wheeling Hospital purchased Mount de Chantal and demolished the building. Wheeling Jesuit University is establishing the Mount de Chantal Conservatory of Music in honor of the Visitation Sisters.

May 31, 2008: Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy Graduates Last Class

The Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy in Wheeling graduated its last class of students on May 31, 2008.

Architecturally, the Mount de Chantal building was a good example of eclecticism with ‘‘Mission’’ style features. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

W.Va. State Police Graduates 64th Cadet Class

The West Virginia State Police officially gained 27 new troopers Friday after graduation ceremonies at West Virginia State University.

Members of the 64th cadet classed marched into an auditorium full of fellow troopers and elated family members.

This class, however, is different than any other that’s graduated since the State Police began in 1919. The 26 men and one woman were recruited because of their previous experience in law enforcement. Combined the new troopers already have more than 135 years of experience.

Troopers were presented their new badges by Governor Tomblin and Colonel C.R. Smithers of the State Police.

Tomblin along with U.S. Prosecuting Attorney William Ihlenfeld gave the graduation addresses, encouraging the troopers to become leaders not just on the job, but also in their communities.