Private Education Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Hope Scholarship Applicants Top 6,000 In Second Enrollment Session

More than 6,000 West Virginia students’ families have signed up for the Hope Scholarship savings account that allows them to take state money and apply it to tuition for private schools.

More than 6,000 West Virginia students’ families have signed up for the Hope Scholarship savings account that allows them to take state money and apply it to tuition for private and homeschool.

State Treasurer Riley Moore, whose office administers the school choice program, spoke to Randy Yohe about the process of getting and using a Hope Scholarship and the growing numbers who want to opt out of the public school system.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Yohe: You’ve got your final application numbers in. This is really the first, full Hope Scholarship enrollment session that ended on May 15 with more than 6,000 applications. Was that number expected?

Moore: It kind of tracked where we thought it could be. We came in at 6,323 students. Most of that growth came from kindergartners, and that’s where we saw most of the growth from the numbers in the prior year. To be clear, these applications that we received include students that are currently Hope Scholarship students because they must reapply every year. The application deadline ended on May 15. That does not mean that you need to be approved by May 15. You just had to submit your application by May 15. My office has 45 days to approve that application. It generally never takes that long.

Yohe: Do you expect that number to continue to increase?

Moore: I think it will increase on the kindergarten side. I estimate it is probably between 1,500 and 2,000 students a year. We’ll have, in addition to that, maybe some others wanting to leave public school. We’re not seeing huge numbers of folks leaving public school since the initial tranche of that was in the year prior. Where you’re going to see a large number of people come into this program is 2026. That, by law, is when the program opens up to everybody. That means current private school children and current homeschooled children could then apply for Hope Scholarship in 2026. Currently, you have to either be a rising kindergartener, or in public school for 45 days to apply.

Yohe: If my figures are right, the more than 5,000 students that you believe will be eligible will cost the program more than $22 million. What is the Hope Scholarships budget?

Moore: It’s roughly around there. Because we have an estimate. The long term budget number on this, once it opens up in 2026, is probably $150 million a year.

Yohe: What’s the main reason that you see families applying for scholarships?

Moore: I think people want to exercise some educational options and choices. This is about educational freedom. It’s about individuals being able to utilize their tax dollars in the manner that they see fit to educate their children. Some people certainly want to remain and continue in their public school system and they like the school that they’re in. Some would like to send their kids to, say a christian school, a catholic school or what have you, some type of parochial education, and I think that’s great.

Yohe: I’ve noticed a number of church marquees that say apply for the Hope Scholarship, both in Huntington where I live and around the state.

Moore: Catholic schools like the ones in Huntington or Charleston, in Morgantown, Martinsburg, Wheeling, they’re everywhere. Using those Catholic schools as an example, there is a capacity, right? I mean, they can’t take unlimited amounts of children. So, I think that’s going to be kind of a natural backstop in terms of an explosion in growth. I do think it will probably spur growth, perhaps in this Catholic school system over time. You’re talking about having to build new buildings and things of that nature. But then also you have the ability to homeschool your children with these dollars as well. And we have seen some individuals decide to exercise that, and I think that you’ll have some more homeschool families apply for this in the future as well, particularly after 2026.

Yohe: We’ve also seen a statewide advertising campaign. I’m seeing a lot of billboards, and heard some advertising on the radio. I’m not sure if it’s in television media or newspapers, but talk about the impetus for your Hope Scholarship advertising campaign.

Moore: That is actually outside organizations that have been advertising this program. We’ve not done a tremendous amount of advertising in this office, just because we’ve seen outside groups doing it. As good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, we didn’t feel like we needed to double down on money that’s already being spent.

Yohe: There was a mention at the state Board of Education meeting last week that there was possibly some Hope Scholarship money that was used out of state.

Moore: That is actually permissible. The way the legislation was enacted allows Hope Scholarship funds to be used out of state, there is a provision that allows for that. Let’s say, if you live in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, there’s not a lot of private school options there. There’s actually no Catholic High School in the entire Eastern Panhandle. So, West Virginia residents can send their children to out of state schools with Hope Scholarship money.

Yohe: The scholarship amount varies every year. For the 2023-24 school year, it will be $4,488.82. What do those funds basically go towards?

Moore: Generally, it’s going towards tuition, but it can also apply to school uniforms, books, tutors. We’ve talked about homeschool, so that entire curriculum, which would also involve materials and books and things of that nature. There are qualified expenses that are approved by the board around those that have scholarships. You can’t just spend it on whatever you want. These dollars go into a digital wallet, we don’t send out checks for people to just go ahead and buy whatever they think is permissible. There’s a safeguard measure in this, and this is audited internally as well.

Public Schools Sports Director Says Hope Play-Transfer Law Needs Legislative Revisit

Bernie Dolan said the one time transfer rule for upperclassmen and women has already prompted the beginnings of a recruiting portal system.

Gov. Jim Justice struggled with House Bill 2820. He didn’t sign the bill that becomes law 90 days from passage. lt allows Hope Scholarship recipients, along with those enrolled in private schools, home school, microschools and learning pods to participate on public school sports teams. The new law also allows student-athletes to transfer schools at least one time and keep their athletic eligibility.

Justice had no problem with the first part, but had serious concerns about the new, liberalized transfer rules.

Bernie Dolan, executive director for the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission (WVSSAC), said he sees many inconsistencies throughout the legislation.

Dolan said removing the provision that the incoming student take one class at the school they are playing for weakens personal and academic ties.

“Now, kids will play for a school that they have no association with,” Dolan said. “We spoke loudly that we were opposed to that. We think that you should have that class – you should be enrolled in the school you’re playing for.”

Dolan said an academic component that requires a 2.0 GPA for public school students to play, but not private schoolers, creates an unfair playing field.

“Somebody may have to relook at the 2.0,” Dolan said. “They will say why is somebody allowed to participate with no academic standard, or limited academic standard, when the member school students all have a 2.0 that they have to achieve.”

He said incoming students will have to take a nationally normed test once a year, but said there are no comparisons offered to the academic qualifications required for public school students.

“There’s not really a standard test that they have to take,” He said. “It just has to be a nationally normed test, so we’re not even sure which test each student will be presenting.”

As to the one-time sports eligible transfer rule for any student, Dolan said the 13 or 14-year-old rule in place for underclassmen was a fair offer.

“You get to go anywhere you want in sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth grade,” Dolan said. “As long as you go to the beginning of the school year it doesn’t matter where you live. But you have to make that decision by your ninth grade year. You have a one-time transfer to come back and it has to be for academic reasons.”

Dolan said with the existing rule, students transfer as freshmen and they’re not already developed. He said it doesn’t become a feeder program for the bigger schools. Now, he said the one time transfer rule for upperclassmen and women has already prompted the beginnings of a recruiting portal system.

“As soon as it passed the legislature, before the governor even got it, there was a school, or somebody associated with the school, who was putting out ‘Hey, we lost this many people, these positions, that’s what we’re looking for.’ And somebody else has identified themselves as a recruiting coordinator,” Dolan said.

During a media briefing earlier this week, Justice addressed both aspects of this new law.

“I fully support the ability of our HOPE scholarship recipients, students in microschools or learning pods, homeschooled students, or our private school students to participate in extracurricular activities at their school or at their local public school,” Justice said. “However, allowing student athletes to transfer to any school, whatsoever, with no purpose other than jumping to a better athletic team, will do nothing but make a few teams better at the expense of all the others.”

Both Dolan and Justice are asking the West Virginia Legislature to revamp the law in a special session later this year.

Senate Education Discusses Financial Literacy, Free Period Products

The Senate Education Committee started the day off with a lively discussion of several topics, including history and hygiene.

Senate Bill 216 would require all schools to instruct students on the Holocaust and other genocides.

Although there was brief discussion around the need to define the term “genocide,” much of the debate and ensuing amendments to the bill related to concerns about government overreach into private education.

Sen. Rollan Roberts, R-Raleigh, argued the bill exacerbated an imbalance of creating requirements for secular schools, but not for homeschooling or other alternative education programs.

“What we’re adding on to I’m fine with, I have no problem,” Roberts said. “I’m thrilled, except for the forcing of the private schools to do these things when, by the way, we have twice as many homeschoolers in the state of West Virginia as we do private school students. We don’t do those things with all of the others. This is a singling out, is where I have the problem.”

Roberts proposed an amendment to strike the words, “private, parochial, and denominational” from the bill, which was adopted.

Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, proposed another amendment that would require all public schools to teach financial literacy.

“The basic understanding of a checking account and banking and how a mortgage works, how a car payment works; those kinds of things, I think are things that somehow some of our children are, as they leave public schools, are not prepared to have knowledge in those areas, and those are decisions they’re having to make that can really affect them,” Oliverio said.

State Superintendent David Roach testified that West Virginia schools do teach financial literacy and have for years but conceded that there is nothing in the state code requiring it be taught. The amendment also passed.

A committee substitute of Senate Bill 216 was reported to the full Senate with the recommendation that it pass.

Free Period Products

The committee also took up Senate Bill 489, which would require all county boards of education to provide free feminine hygiene products to students in grades three through 12.

In recent surveys from the Alliance for Period Supplies, a nonprofit sponsored by Kotex, more than two in five people with periods say they have struggled to purchase period products due to lack of income at some point in their life, often leading to missed work and school. The surveys also show COVID-19 has only exacerbated the issue of access.

Sen. David Stover, R-Wyoming, voiced his support for the bill. As a teacher for more than 20 years, Stover said he saw firsthand the need for period products in schools.

“What I ended up doing for the last 10 or 12 years I taught, any two or three of the female students that I knew, and knew their moms – who I probably taught 20 years earlier – I just donated for 500 bucks,” Stover said.

“I said, ‘Here’s the fund, you and your mothers figure out where this will be stored. You don’t need to do anything, we’ll kind of know when you get up and go to that particular file cabinet.’ It was a godsend that that could happen. It would be a bigger godsend because it ended up being that students from every teacher in the building would interrupt my class then. So you need to do that in a central way. This could have been done a long time ago.”

If passed, West Virginia would join 16 other states including neighboring Maryland and Virginia in requiring period products in schools.

Senate Bill 489 was also reported to the full Senate with the recommendation that it pass.

Results Of Focus Groups

At the end of the meeting, the Senators heard a joint presentation from the state’s two education employee organizations.

American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia President Fred Albert and West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee presented some of the findings from six focus groups the organizations conducted across the state in late November and early December 2022 to collect community input on the factors that will help improve student achievement.

They reported the major finding was schools simply need more resources, closely followed by concerns of discipline, teacher compensation and academic freedom.

Debate Over Public Vs. Non-Traditional Education Gets Politically Heated

There are two schools of thought dominating the politics of improving West Virginia’s education systems. Some promote non-traditional education, while others say public schools must be prioritized.

State Treasurer Riley Moore oversees the legally revitalized Hope Scholarship program, offering state funding to families seeking educational avenues outside the public school system. Recently, while announcing his run for the U.S. Congress, Moore said he would push to create national educational savings accounts offering more school options across America. In doing so, he made a backhanded swipe at the public school system.

“This should be a federal program, we must have school choice for all of our children. You see the national test scores, they are abysmal,” Moore said. “Fourth grade and eighth grade reading and math has never been lower. We have to put our children first. There’s a war going on with the family in this country, and we have to be able to give them choice over indoctrination.”

Dale Lee is a long time educator and president of the West Virginia Education Association. He said implying that public schools indoctrinate students is a false, politically charged claim.

“We’re teaching them hopefully to become critical thinkers, and to look at all sides of issues,” Lee said. “As a middle school teacher told me, if I could indoctrinate my middle school kids, all of them would wear deodorant and stay off their phones during class. It’s not as simple as the far right wants to make us believe. We’re not indoctrinating anyone.”

Gov. Jim Justice said it was improper to speak so strongly against public schools.

“I do not think that it is constructive in any way for us to throw rocks,” Justice said. “Probably every last one of us that’s casting a rock went through the public school system, and I’m a believer in our public school system.”

Justice said supporting public and non-traditional schooling not only offers needed choice for West Virginia families, but sets up competition that makes the entire state education system better.

“Should we give our kids and our parents choice? Absolutely,” Justice said. “Without question, the competition level, whether it be charter or private or public, the competition level will make us better.“

Dale Lee countered that competition between public and private educational entities can not help improve things because they’re not on a level playing field.

“You’re not comparing apples to apples. I looked at a charter school back in the early 2010’s in Pittsburgh,” Lee said. “That school was successful, but it had a 15 to one student teacher ratio. I just left the classroom in Princeton High School, teaching a class of 38 kids and 12 on special needs. Anyone will tell you, in education, I can do far more at 15 to 1 students than 38 to 1.”

This debate will continue into the 2023 legislative session, where opinions on educating West Virginia children will become state policy proposals.

Eight W.Va. Counties Will Be Remote, Virtual School This Week

The West Virginia Department of Education announced that eight counties will be remote-learning only for the week of Sept. 13. State officials rolled out updated data Saturday, Sept. 12 at 5 p.m.

Monongalia, Boone, Fayette, Kanawha, Logan, Mingo, Monroe and Putnam counties will not be open for in-person instruction this week.

The COVID-19 Data Review Panel has determined that Calhoun County will move from orange to yellow on the WVDE School Alert System Map. Calhoun County has had 13 cases which are linked and contained over the previous 14 days with no further evidence of community spread, according to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.

Red (Substantial Community Transmission): Remote-only learning mode. No extracurricular competitions or practices are permitted. Staff may report to their schools, as determined by the county. Essential support services, including special education and meals, will continue. Counties in red include: Monongalia.

Orange (Heightened Community Transmission): Remote-only learning mode. Extracurricular practices may occur, however, competitions may not. Staff may report to their schools, as determined by the county. Essential support services, including special education and meals, will continue. Counties in orange include: Boone, Fayette, Kanawha, Logan, Mingo, Monroe and Putnam.

Yellow (Increased Community Transmission): School may be held for in-person instruction. Extracurricular practices and competitions may occur. Health and safety precautions include, at a minimum, face coverings at all times for grades six and above. Please refer to your county for specific face covering requirements. Counties in yellow include: Berkeley, Brooke, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Doddridge, Grant, Greenbrier, Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Lincoln, McDowell, Mercer, Ohio, Pocahontas, Raleigh, Roane, Summers, Taylor, Tucker, Upshur, and Wayne.

Green (Minimal Community Transmission): School may be held for in-person instruction. Extracurricular practices and competitions may occur. Health and safety precautions include, at a minimum, face coverings in grades three and above when students are outside of core groups and in congregant settings and on school buses. Please refer to your county for specific face covering requirements. Counties in green include: Barbour, Braxton, Gilmer, Hardy, Hampshire, Lewis, Marion, Marshall, Mason, Mineral, Morgan, Nicholas, Pendleton, Pleasants, Preston, Randolph, Ritchie, Tyler, Webster, Wetzel, Wood, Wirt and Wyoming.

All schools, both public and private, are expected to adhere to the WVDE’s re-entry map to guide in-person instruction and extracurricular activities.

Updates to the map will be announced each Saturday at 5 p.m. and will be in effect until the following Saturday at the same time, according to the WVDE. The only exception would be if a county turns red during the week.

If this happens, the change would be made immediately to the map, according to the WVDE, and all in-person instruction and extracurricular and athletic activities would be suspended.

As of Saturday morning, the West Virginia DHHR reports 12,521 total cases of the virus and 265 deaths. 3,031 cases are considered active.

W.Va. Senate Moves to Include Prep Teams in WVSSAC

The Senate has advanced a bill to recognize college preparatory teams as members of the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission.

The bill approved Wednesday allows college prep sports teams to elect to be members of the activities commission and compete against other area high schools and attend conferences and national tournaments.

However, the bill does prohibit college prep teams that are members of the WVSSAC from competing for league, regional or state championships.

The bill states that college prep teams must be comprised of members from the same school and must not have members who are fifth-year seniors or post-high school graduates.

Senate Bill 540 has been passed to the House for action.