Miller Hall Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

W.Va. Legislature Moves To Strip Board Of Education Authority; Officials Speak Out

West Virginia leaders in K-12 education are speaking out against a resolution approved by the West Virginia Legislature. The resolution, if approved by voters this fall, would allow the legislature to take rule-making authority from the West Virginia Board of Education.

West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch and Board of Education President Miller Hall issued a joint statement at Wednesday’s board meeting speaking in opposition to House Joint Resolution 102.

The resolution was approved by both the House and the Senate and will now be placed before voters in the upcoming November general election. That vote will determine whether the board of education will continue to make education decisions or if those decisions will fall to the legislature.

“The board of education has maintained steady and consistent leadership of the public school system during these incredibly uncertain times,” Hall said. “We are now moving into a post-pandemic model where we must address the extenuating circumstances and lingering effects of COVID-19 on learning and development. It will be crucial that we support our students with the continuity of balance the board requires and provides.”

“We often talk about the need to pivot to meet the escalating and changing needs of our education community,” Burch said. “The board has the flexibility to move nimbly and efficiently to support our children, educators and staff in the face of change. For example, we have met with minimal notice to issue waivers. The Board has also traveled and held meetings around the state to be accessible to communities and to hear citizens’ concerns.”

The joint statement said the board is non-partisan and made up of members with diverse educational backgrounds who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.

Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, also issued a statement in response. He called the board of education an “unelected fourth branch of government” that does not want to be held accountable.

“The legislature has 134 elected members, which makes all of them directly accountable to the people they serve,” Blair said. “Through the legislative rulemaking processes, the legislature reviews and implements hundreds of rules from nearly all state agencies each year. The state board of education should not be exempt from that process.”

This marks the second time that the West Virginia Legislature has attempted to change the state board’s role in setting policy, according to a news release from the department of education.

W.Va. Students Fell Behind During Pandemic, But Officials Say Scores Will Help Tackle Gaps

State officials released student testing data for 2021 this week. Scores in math, science and English language dropped during the pandemic.

Students in grades 3 to 11 were tested this year.

Overall, 40 percent of West Virginia students were proficient in English language arts, down 6 percentage points from 2019. In science, 27 percent were found to be proficient — also down 6 points.

But math saw the greatest drop — down 11 percentage points from 2019 — showing a 28 percent proficiency rate.

The overall 2021 test results are a combination of three assessments: West Virginia General Summative Assessment in grades 3-8, the SAT School Day in grade 11 and the West Virginia Alternate Summative Assessment in grades 3-8 and 11.

Results are based on students who were enrolled full-time and in school for at least 135 days during the academic year.

Students were not tested in 2020 when the pandemic began.

This latest news adds to previous concerns about sagging achievement in the Mountain State. Prior to the pandemic, West Virginia students were already below the national average in all three subjects. That’s according to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP. These tests are often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card.

State Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch urged caution on making any direct comparisons between the pandemic year and previous years, saying the declines are not unique to the Mountain State.

“It’s going to be nationwide. It’s not going to be just here in West Virginia,” Burch said in the West Virginia Board of Education’s August meeting. “I mean, we continue to say we had nearly 50,000 children that were not in a brick-and-mortar school for nearly 18 months.”

Burch said test scores from this year will be used strictly to focus on COVID-19 recovery efforts and address individual student needs going forward.

State school board member Debra Sullivan agreed with Burch, saying the scores from 2021 are not the whole picture.

“A test is but a snapshot of a moment in time,” Sullivan said. “It’s not the whole child. It’s not the whole academic, intellectual capability or reflection of the whole child. It is a snapshot.”

Much of the dip in student performance was a result of participation rates, back-and-forth between remote and in-person classes, and learning disruptions over the past year-and-a-half, officials said.

This summer, thousands of students in West Virginia took part in a robust, summer school program called SOLE. More than $30 million was divided up among West Virginia counties. The program’s aim was to accelerate academic progress and address social-emotional and developmental losses.

“The journey through recovery will address the needs of the whole child – academics, well-being and developmental growth,” said Burch in a press release. “Districts are encouraged to look at the 2021 assessment results with an emphasis on individual student performance and use the information to construct the larger story of what is needed for meaningful recovery and growth.”

Additionally Wednesday, state school board members approved a limited waiver for this fall that allows all students for the first nine weeks of school access to extracurricular activities like sports, band and theater — regardless of GPA. Typically, a student must have at least a 2.0 to be eligible.

State school board members say the policy is to enable students who struggled to keep their grades up during the pandemic time to catch up.

“We do not see this limited waiver as an excuse for low academic performance, but instead an avenue for students to re-establish consistent engagement with their schools and benefit from the social-emotional, academic and extracurricular supports schools offer,” said WVBOE President Miller Hall in a statement. “These children have had so much taken away from them, and it is important that we look for ways to keep them connected so they can learn and thrive.”

Board Cancels Meeting On In-Person Schooling Penalties As Teacher Unions Continue Push-Back On Ruling

The West Virginia Board of Education canceled a meeting that was scheduled Tuesday morning to address counties that did not initially comply with a ruling to return to in-person learning.

The meeting was scheduled to address counties that voted to remain in remote-only instruction. But last week, Gilmer, Taylor and Marion agreed to offer an in-person option — making them the last of the state’s 55 counties to comply with the state board’s demands.

State school board President Miller Hall said in a press release that he was pleased all counties were now back in buildings, and he said mitigation efforts, such as mask-wearing and social distancing, to combat the spread of COVID-19, would continue.

“We know more about this virus than we did when schools moved to remote learning in March 2020,” Hall said in the press release. “And when we are diligent to follow the key mitigations such as mask-wearing, we know our children are safe in our schools.”

Health officials say children under age 15 do not transmit or become infected with the coronavirus at the same rate as adults.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recently reported that spread of the coronavirus in schools where mitigation efforts are being followed is very low.

Members of the state BOE and the West Virginia Department of Education say they continue to work closely with state health officials to monitor the health and safety of West Virginia schools and the needs of students.

Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch said the lack of in-person instruction, school support and daily structured activities are disruptive to learning and are harmful to the most vulnerable children.

“As the state superintendent, I cannot single-handedly erase the impact of the many adverse childhood experiences facing these children,” Burch said. “However, together with the state board, we can make sure our school doors are open to those children relying on the consistent and undeniable benefit of in-person instruction.”

At an emergency meeting last week, state board members considered the remaining three counties that still had not opened physical schools. At that meeting, members were presented with possible penalties they could impose if counties did not offer an in-person option, such as withholding state aid or bringing legal action against a county. Board members did not vote on penalties, instead opting to allow the remaining counties to come up with a solution by Jan. 26 that would put those counties in line with the mandate passed by the state board on Jan. 13.

Under that ruling, schools are no longer allowed to offer fully remote learning for pre-K through 8th grade — regardless of the county’s color on the state’s coronavirus map. High schools are encouraged to attend in-person as well, but only if a county is not labeled red on the map.

West Virginia’s two largest teacher unions, the West Virginia Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, are urging judges to slow or halt reopening more classrooms — demanding that school workers be given the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine before being forced to return to in-person instruction.

A hearing regarding the injunctions began Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.

The West Virginia Board of Education will meet again for its regular session on Feb. 10, 2021 in Charleston.