Kanawha County Schools Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Presidential Election Adds Interest, Engagement To State’s Civics Course

Presidential elections tend to garner the most attention across the United States. That added excitement provides a unique opportunity to engage students in the classroom with real-world events.

Civics – along with economics, geography and history – are the pillars of West Virginia’s social studies curriculum for all K-12 courses.

Despite it being an election year, students at Preston High School like junior Carley Casteel say elections are just a small part of her social studies class.

“We’ve gone into past elections a little bit, but not anything current,” she said. “Just how different presidents have become president like Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt.”

Casteel is taking contemporary studies, which does have a component focused on “the duties of citizens that are necessary to preserve global democracy.” On a personal level, she said it’s hard to engage with something she can’t participate in directly.

“I don’t really have much of a strong opinion solely because I’m only 16, and so I do have a while before I can vote,” Casteel said. “And I feel like giving such a strong opinion on something that I can’t really change just yet would not really have a use.”

Andy Shamblin is a Republican state delegate for Kanawha County. He’s also a 12th grade civics teacher at Nitro High School. Twelfth grade is when most students in the state take a civics-focused social studies course, a graduation requirement.

Shamblin said the political system is taught across the state’s K-12 curriculum, but it’s logical to focus on elections when students are closest to voting age.

“Twelfth grade is sort of the ideal place for it, because it’s, in essence, a capstone course that sort of ties together all the lower level history components that obviously do have a component with government, politics,” he said.

As an elected state representative, Shamblin said he would like to see more attention given to local elections. In his own classroom, he integrates the state legislature’s annual session into his course and teaches how to follow bills as they become law.

“But the national issues seem to captivate the most attention, and they’re the most dramatic, and students are most interested in those,” Shamblin said.

Per the state standards for the civics course, students are expected to debate their classmates on certain topics. Shamblin said an election year can elevate emotions in the classroom, but expectations of civility are established early.

“The key is to recognize that just because you may not agree with someone’s perspective, you can still understand it,” he said. “And I always emphasize too, that the greatest achievements legislatively in American history were founded on compromise: civil rights legislation, the constitutional convention itself. Had it not been for both sides compromising, we wouldn’t have a nation today.”

Danielle Barker is an 11th and 12th grade social studies teacher at Preston High School. She said like many other teachers, she switches up her teaching order to take advantage of the energy the election provides.

“So if we had the primary elections in the spring, I would change the way I teach, and I would talk about elections in the spring,” Barker said. “So this year, I talk about elections now”

She said something else that gets moved up in her plans is discussions about how the media influences public opinion and ideas. Like Shamblin, Barker said one of the bigger things she tries to foster in her classroom is civil discussion.

“We practice even with little questions like, ‘What are the most important American values to you?’” she said. “We practice with these little questions that aren’t so controversial. So that way, when we get to the controversial questions, we can go back. ‘Okay, well, we remember when we talked about this, like we didn’t scream at each other, we didn’t yell at each other.’ And I always try to have them backing in fact.”

Colson Manco is a senior at Preston High School. He said that classroom discussions help students identify what political values with which they most align.

“Politically especially, you know, being able to discuss and be able to agree to disagree,” he said. “She always encourages us to know, to, you know, say why we feel this way. But she wants us to be able to find the evidence to prove that we can stand behind this.”

Teachers also emphasize that for the civically minded, voting is just one action they can take. For example, Shamblin said he would like to see the state implement a community service requirement for graduation. Barker said she encourages students to take action other than voting on any issue they care about.

But not all students need to be pushed to engage with local government. Manco previously served as one of the student members of the county’s board of education. He said getting an education on the issues before voting is crucial for students, even if they won’t be voting next month.

“The fact is, we are the next generation of voters,” Manco said. “Whatever decision does happen in November, we are going to have the outcomes that come from this election in our first election that we’ll vote in. We’re educating the future of voters.”

Whatever the outcomes are after Nov. 5, rest assured students will be discussing them in civics classes across West Virginia.

New Law Aims To Keep Kids In School

A new law hopes to address the issue of chronic absenteeism this fall.

West Virginia students are struggling to achieve proficiency in basic academic skills like reading and math, according to national test scores in recent years. One possible contributing factor: chronic absenteeism. A new law hopes to address the issue this fall.

Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing 10 percent or more of the school year. In West Virginia, that adds up to at least 18 days, or almost a full month, of missed instruction. It could be 18 days in a row or just two days a month across the school year.

The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) distinguishes chronic absenteeism from truancy by its focus on all absences from school, whereas truancy traditionally focuses on unexcused absences. Chronic absenteeism also emphasizes learning loss and the academic impact of missed days.

At a meeting of the West Virginia Senate Education Committee in February, state Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt laid out the problem for legislators.

“We have about 34-35 percent of our students that are chronically absent,” she said. “When you’re missing one to three days a month out of instruction, you’re not only getting behind yourself, but that our teachers are having to struggle to catch that child up or continuing to move forward with the rest of the class. So it has a huge impact on the achievement really, of all students in the school, when we’re dealing with these chronic absenteeism issues.”

Blatt presented those insights as part of a discussion on Senate Bill 568, which requires schools to establish meaningful contact with parents or guardians after just one unexcused absence. It ultimately passed, but not until most schools were on summer break, so it won’t be tested until the fall.

One big change: Schools won’t wait to get the details of an absence. If a student is out without a valid excuse, the family gets a call immediately.

“It frees up our attendance directors, counselors, social workers and those people in our counties to truly focus on what’s causing this chronic absenteeism issue and what are the things that we need to put in place,” Blatt said. “So much time in the past has been tracking whether it’s an excused or unexcused absence, and the bottom line is if they’re not there, they’re not getting instruction.”

The bill also requires schools create a System of Support Plan, or SOS, to encourage students to attend school.

Stacey Losh, a coordinator in the office of district and school improvement for the state Department of Education, said the goal of every school is to create an environment where kids want to be.

“That it is a safe environment, that it is a positive environment that is conducive for all students’ learning,” she said. “These are interventions that don’t just impact attendance, they will impact learning, they’ll impact behavior. This plan that the schools have been asked to create, we’ll take a look at, how do we create that environment?”

Losh said each school’s approach to absenteeism will have to be tailored to their needs with the support of a local team and the state Department of Education. The important message of chronic absenteeism is that students are missing instructional time.

“I’ve said this to these instructors, I say this to principals, no one can do this alone,” Losh said. “This is heavy work and this is a lot, and there’s a lot that goes on in school. Universal, what we’re working on right now is positive messaging about attendance and motivational strategies to get kids, you know, what motivates them to be there.”

The plan must also communicate to parents and guardians the importance of attendance and the seriousness of failing to do so.

That part may be the key. A recent NPR/Ipsos poll shows only 6 percent of parents surveyed identified their child as chronically absent, compared to a national average of 30 percent chronic absenteeism. In the same poll, only 5 percent of parents surveyed identified chronic absenteeism as a major concern.

Tom Williams, superintendent of Kanawha County Schools and the state’s largest school district, said he sees the issue of student motivation in his schools.

“I don’t know that everyone values education,” Williams said. “It’s almost sometimes I think, taken for granted by some folks. And it shouldn’t be. It’s a right, but it’s also a privilege in my mind.”

Williams said another factor is that during the COVID-19 pandemic students and teachers grew accustomed to accessing materials online. Now he said teachers are being encouraged to make it harder for students to access materials outside of the classroom.

“During COVID, we had to put everything online and our teachers got used to doing that,” Williams said. “We’re dialing that back significantly so that it’s necessary to come to school, rather than to go online and check and see what your assignments are. Nothing beats face-to-face interaction with a teacher.”

One change SB 568 made is to allow attendance directors to make legal complaints to magistrates if a student has 10 or more unexcused absences.

Sen. Jay Taylor, R-Taylor, is the lead sponsor of SB 568. He said the legal complaints simply give communities another tool to address absenteeism in the form of the courts.

“Some of them were actually coming to me and saying, ‘Hey, we can’t be involved, the way this law is structured, our hands are tied.’” Taylor said. “So just giving them this ability to be involved, the ones that see that opportunity where we felt that like, ‘Okay, we can be making a difference here,’ if they see something that they can do.”

But there is concern about further involving the legal system in schools and possibly criminalizing parents.

“I think it’s really a last resort,” Williams said. “Taking parents to court, when maybe it’s a single mother, and she has to work 12 hour shifts to feed the kids and she’s not home when it’s time to go to school, there’s just so many things that you have to look at before, you know, the courts come into play, I think.”

Taylor said that’s the motivation some serious cases may need.

“This gives them teeth, this gives them the power,” Taylor said. “Whereas just the administrator at the school has to be the nice guy. And they’re powerless. They can’t do something to say, hey, you have to do this, whereas the judge, and the prosecutors, they actually do have the power and the teeth. So it’s the proper place to have it.”

For now, students can enjoy their summer break. But in about seven weeks, administrators across West Virginia will see if this new approach can keep students in school and learning.

Charleston Student Awarded National Honor Society Scholarship

A West Virginia student has been named a semifinalist for a national academic scholarship.

As a semifinalist Mariam Kisto, a senior at George Washington High School in Charleston, will receive a $3,200 scholarship from the National Honor Society (NHS).

Chosen from nearly 17,000 applicants, the NHS is awarding $2 million in scholarships to 600 NHS students. The scholarships recognize students who exemplify the four pillars of NHS membership: scholarship, service, leadership and character.

Kisto is the only recipient in West Virginia of an NHS scholarship this year. She was surprised to discover she was the only recipient in the state.

“There’s so many people around me that I know for a fact also deserve it,” Kisto said. “But yeah, it’s really an honor.”

Kisto has not made a final decision of what university she will be attending in the fall, but she said the award now allows her to consider more colleges as an option.

“I want a good computer science program,” Kisto said. “I am considering different schools, and this scholarship will definitely, definitely help pay for it.”

Kisto said she appreciates the opportunities NHS has allowed her to help make her community and school a better place and hoped that the same can be true for future members.

“It really is a good opportunity and it’s never a loss to try joining NHS or any other club,” she said. “I hope that people will be encouraged.”

School Discipline Bill Stumbles In House Education Committee

School discipline was identified as a key issue coming into this year’s legislative session. But with the session’s end just days away, a key school discipline bill is in question after a contentious committee meeting Monday afternoon.

Senate Bill 614 aims to expand teachers’ ability to remove disruptive students to the elementary level from grades kindergarten through six. But the bill also has further requirements including suspension of the unruly student and placement in alternative education.

Lindsey McIntosh, general counsel for Kanawha County Schools, brought up several concerns when the Senate Education Committee discussed the bill in February. She was on hand again Monday afternoon in the House Education Committee, and told lawmakers that the bill will create more work for schools and school districts. According to McIntosh, the bill requires a student that has been removed to undergo a risk assessment, a step above what Kanawha County Schools already does.

“What we typically do, unless we’re talking about an expulsion, is we do a Threat Report, which is based on the Virginia model of threat reports,” she said. “It is a scientifically proven model that we evaluate whether or not that threat is transient, meaning it was just language used or if it was something that was substantive, meaning they have an intent to actually do what they stated that they were going to do. Once that threat report comes back as substantive, then we do the risk assessment.”

McIntosh said the county does far more threat reports than risk assessments.

She further warned legislators that as written, the bill’s required assessment could spell federal legal trouble for schools. McIntosh said the requirement triggers special education protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, also known as IDEA. Those federal protections are incongruous with the bill’s requirement to remove students from their classroom.

“It’s going to create an ambiguity that is going to lead to litigation, there is no way above that or beyond that,” McIntosh said. “If we have teachers that are asking for these students to be removed, and the law says technically they are protected students under the IDEA, which all of these kids would be because they’re all now triggering ChildFind under this language, then we as a school system have to figure out how to litigate – are we under the IDEA? Or are we complying with the law?”

SB 614’s lead sponsor and Senate Education Chair Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, was on hand to defend the bill. She said the bill’s requirements raise the standard for all counties.

“The whole purpose is to remove that child immediately, one to three days, and there have been school systems who say we can’t do a risk assessment, or we can’t do analysis in three days,” Grady said. “Well, you can, you’re just not doing it right now because there’s nobody forcing your hand to get it done right away. And this is kind of what we want to do is make sure we get that done quickly, rather than them dragging their feet for two weeks at a time and saying we don’t have that ready.”

Grady, a teacher, has consistently said that discipline is the number one issue for teachers, driving them away from the profession and robbing other students of their right to learn. She said SB 614 isn’t perfect, but something needs to be done to help the situation.

“You need more people to help with risk assessments, then so be it. That’s what you do,” Grady said. “You rearrange things. That’s what we do in education, we make do with what we have. And so I think that, that’s the best way we would do it now. And if it seems like there are a lot of referrals and specific counties or specific areas, then we have to revisit that and see what needs to be done.”

Grady said the law can be reassessed moving forward as needed, acknowledging it will not fit every situation.

“We don’t have an answer for everything. I wish we did,” she said. “And I wish that this bill solved every problem we have, it would be so great. I worked so hard to try to make this perfect. And I realized that it’s not perfect, and it’s never going to be perfect. Because let’s face it, every kid is different. Every county is different. Every school is different, every teacher is different. And so it’s not a one size fits all.”

After more than an hour of discussion over the bill’s language and potential changes to ensure compliance with federal requirements, the committee adjourned without taking further action on SB 614. With only four days left in the regular session, the bill’s future is unclear.

Language similar to, but less stringent than, SB 614 is included in House Bill 5262, also known as the Teacher’s Bill of Rights, which has cleared both education committees and is now pending in Senate Finance.

First Four Electric School Buses Roll Out Of South Charleston Plant

On Wednesday, the company delivered smaller Nano Beast buses to Kanawha, Clay, Cabell and Monongalia counties.

GreenPower delivered its first four school buses to West Virginia school districts on Wednesday.

Fraser Atkinson, CEO of GreenPower, notes that the school bus we’re boarding got 170 miles out of a single charge, exceeding its advertised range of 140 miles.

GreenPower will begin building more of these buses, called the BEAST (Battery Electric Automotive School Transportation), in South Charleston in January.

On Wednesday, the company delivered smaller Nano BEAST buses to Kanawha, Clay, Cabell and Monongalia counties.

Taking a ride, the first thing you notice about the Nano BEAST is how quiet it is. No roaring diesel engine, transmission or exhaust.

The bus is so quiet, company officials say, that the classroom behavior of special needs students has improved because of it.

Instead, the fuel comes from a lithium iron phosphate battery, the same kind now used in Teslas.

The biggest power consumption other than running the bus? The heater.

“The traction motor, the drive motor is number one, of course, and the heaters are number two,” Atkinson said. “The AC draws very little in the summer.”

What about those mountains in West Virginia? Atkinson explains that with the right kind of driver training, the downhill portion of the trip can actually put power back into the battery.

“The other thing is that you use the brakes a whole lot less than a traditional vehicle,” he said. “And with really good drivers it can be literally a third of the usage of brakes compared to the equivalent.”

Right now, the battery is a big-ticket item. A battery pack for the bus can cost $20,000 and last for about 10 years. Atkinson says the cost will come down.

“So if that trend continues, in five years, the batteries will cost a whole lot less,” he said. “Then in 10 years, they’ll be a fraction of what they are now.”

The charging infrastructure has a way to go. Kanawha County took delivery of its first bus Wednesday, but it doesn’t have a charger yet. It’s been ordered, Superintendent Tom Williams says.

The Mega BEAST could solve that. GreenPower will begin manufacturing it in South Charleston and California next year. Its battery will be capable of 300 miles on a single charge. The company calls it the longest range on the market.

With that kind of range, a field trip from say, Wheeling to Charleston might not be that remote.

Showcasing Rescue Horses And Our Song Of The Week This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, Caroline MacGregor reports on one of the largest equine events to showcase rescue and at-risk horses taking place in Winfield, West Virginia. And as classes resume at WVU students react to the university’s proposed program cuts.

On this West Virginia Morning, Caroline MacGregor reports on one of the largest equine events to showcase rescue and at-risk horses taking place in Winfield, West Virginia.

Also, as classes resume at WVU, students react to the university’s proposed program cuts, a vocational aviation facility coming to Marion County is expected to stimulate high-tech job growth, and proposed changes to solar energy in the state.

In this show, our Mountain Stage Song of the Week comes to us from an encore broadcast of Mountain Stage featuring the powerful soul-rock of The War And Treaty, 2022 Americana Music Association’s Duo/Group of the Year. We hear their song “Lover’s Game,” a soulful rocker with a retro style that brings to mind the glory days of Ike & Tina Turner.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Concord University and Shepherd University.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

West Virginia Morning is produced with help from Bill Lynch, Caroline MacGregor, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Briana Heaney, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Eric Douglas is our news director. Caroline MacGregor is our assistant news director and producer.

Teresa Wills is our host. Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning