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Justice Signs Education Bills With Grade Schoolers

After a playful half hour of taking questions in the school gymnasium from the all-student audience, the governor had students help hold his pen as he began signing House Bill 3035, the Third Grade Success Act, putting teachers aides in grades one through three.

With his bulldog Babydog by his side, Gov. Jim Justice traveled to Leon Elementary in Mason County on Tuesday to sign four bills passed during the West Virginia Legislative session. All of them were education based.

He told the kids the classroom helpers would help them better prepare for the future.

“What we want to have happen is we want to ensure that all of you, every single last one, gets off in school to a great start and you’re able to master certain skills that will absolutely take you off in a really good way. We don’t want anybody behind,” Justice said.

The governor and the students signed three other bills into law:

House Bill 3369 creates a School Safety Unit within the Division of Protective Services.

Senate Bill 422 requires public schools to publish curriculum online at the beginning of each new school year.

And, House Bill 2005 establishes the dual enrollment pilot program for high school juniors and seniors in conjunction with state colleges, universities and community and technical colleges.

Leon Elementary is the home school of fourth grade teacher and Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, who was emcee of the event. Grady read questions to Justice submitted by the students.

Olivia from the sixth grade asked if the governor got a lot of letters. That prompted the longtime high school basketball coach to tell a story of perseverance.

“I got a letter the other day from a kid I coached 25 years ago,’ Justice said. “I hadn’t heard from him in 25 years and this kid was just like a lot of y’all, didn’t have a whole lot growing up just like me. This kid worked really hard and in his letter he told me, ‘You told us a long time ago when we were playing for you in the national tournament to keep sawing the wood.’ He asked me what that meant and I told him that it meant just to stay at it and you’ll make steady progress. The student said, ‘I went to West Point, then I went to army ranger school and said in every deployment I ever had, I reminded himself every day to keep sawing the wood.’”

The question that got the biggest reaction from Justice and the kids was, “What is your favorite food?” Justice said he and Babydog were the same – chicken nuggets. A few minutes later, someone handed the governor a bag of chicken nuggets.

Babydog smelled them, and got up off his front legs. Justice fed his beloved pet a nugget, but didn’t eat one himself.

Manchin Seeks To Raise Awareness Of State’s 9,500 Homeless Students

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is leading a bipartisan effort in Washington, D.C. to designate this November as National Homeless Children and Youth Awareness Month.

There are more than 9,500 students experiencing homelessness in West Virginia.

Last school year, one in every four kids in Clay County was homeless, making it the highest rate in the state, according to data from the state education department.

These are kids who, under the federal definition, lack a permanent place to sleep, which includes kids living in cars or encampments and those who are in unstable sheltered conditions, like crashing on a friend’s couch.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is leading a bipartisan effort in Washington, D.C. to designate this November as National Homeless Children and Youth Awareness Month. He introduced the resolution Thursday alongside U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME.

The resolution is supported by several groups, including the American Federation of Teachers, the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the National Association of School Psychologists.

“Every child deserves to have a roof over their head and a warm, safe place to sleep at night,” Manchin said. “Ending homelessness among children and youth continues to be one of my top priorities, and it is more important than ever that we work together to address this heartbreaking issue.”

Since 2019, Manchin has announced millions of dollars in federal funding to address student homelessness in West Virginia.

W.Va. Students Invited To Enter Ornament Competition

West Virginia students in kindergarten through 12th grade may enter the First Lady Student Ornament Competition this fall.

First lady Cathy Justice is asking all students to participate in the 18th annual event. It is open to students in public and private schools as well as those who are home-schooled.

Students are asked to create a “Nutcracker”-themed ornament for a tree to be displayed at the Culture Center in Charleston during the holidays, according to a news release from Gov. Jim Justice’s office.

There will be four divisions according to grade, and a winning class will be chosen from each division. The winning ornaments will be donated in January to the West Virginia State Museum. The four winning classes will receive a gift card to help buy supplies for their class.

The ornaments and Christmas tree will be unveiled in early December in conjunction with Joyful Night.

Entries may be mailed to Elizabeth Yeager, Department of Arts, Culture and History, The Culture Center, 1900 Kanawha Blvd. East, Charleston, WV 25305. Include phone number, email, mailing address, teacher name, school and class.

The ornaments must be received by Nov. 18.

W.Va. ‘Communities In Schools’ Website Launched

The goal is keeping all students in school and, ultimately, graduating.

Gov. Jim Justice and First Lady Cathy Justice launched the Communities In Schools website Monday for her nonprofit education initiative, Communities In Schools (CIS) West Virginia.

CIS aims to forge community partnerships and bring resources into schools to help remove barriers to student learning. The goal is keeping all students in school and ultimately graduating.

West Virginia Superintendent of Schools David Roach said the program reduces the risk when it comes to at-risk students.

“I cannot overstate the important role Communities In Schools plays in our public schools,” Roach said. “The relationships built with our most vulnerable children lead to better outcomes academically, emotionally and developmentally. The new web resource will be instrumental in developing even broader avenues of support for CIS, our children, and our schools.”

First Lady Justice started the CIS program in 2018 with three pilot counties. Since then, the program has expanded to include 194 schools in 36 counties. She also accepted a $15,000 check Monday from the Truist West Virginia Foundation in support of CIS, presented by Truist West Virginia Regional President Patrick O’Malley.

“We are extremely grateful for the continued support of Truist West Virginia,” First Lady Justice said. “They see the value that our CIS program brings to our education system and are paving the way for other West Virginia businesses to follow suit.”

The website will feature a CIS county on the homepage every few weeks. The counties will be featured in alphabetical order starting with Berkeley County. More information about the impact of CIS across the state can be found on the website’s home page under “Our Impact.”

Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Plan: W.Va. Impact

Kelly Allen, the Executive Director at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy says more than 200,000 West Virginians could see relief on student loans as part of a forgiveness plan announced by President Joe Biden.

Randy Yohe discussed the West Virginia impact of student debt relief with Dr. Rodney Hughes, an assistant professor of higher education administration at West Virginia University’s School of Education. His research interests include college access and affordability.

Randy: Dr. Hughes: give me first of all, your overall view on President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan?

Hughes: It appears to be trying to do multiple things. And then we think about the timing of the announcement. I think the overall picture is that it definitely will have both immediate implications for borrowers, and also implications for higher education and for education policy going forward.

Randy: The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission says with all the grants and free community college available, about one third of West Virginia graduates leave school debt free. So how does that affect the impetus of the Biden plan?

Hughes: If students are maybe a little bit too high on income to qualify for the federal need-based aid, and might be eligible for the Promise Scholarship or not, they might still have to take out loans for getting a four year degree within West Virginia. Given that picture of financial aid within the state of West Virginia, it might be the case that if we just look at the sort of national impact of the loan forgiveness, it might be focused on students in other states that don’t provide quite as much support for students attending their public institutions.

Randy: This is going to cost taxpayers more than $300 billion, is that fair to taxpayers?

Hughes: What I think this is trying to do, part of it seems like a financial assistance measure or a financial relief measure for households or individuals that might be struggling or earning, maybe not what you would think, in line with the degree or the educational attainment that they’re after. For students who might have taken advantage of the pause in payments back to 2020, students might have these federal balances, but may not have been recently making payments on them. So for some students, maybe it takes away their liability.

Randy: And then there’s the fairness aspect to those young West Virginians who are entering the working world, pursuing a vocation, plumbing, construction, something that doesn’t need a higher education degree.

Hughes: If we look at past efforts toward loan forgiveness, it’s really focused on for-profit institutions, situations that can be characterized as predatory institutions, really recruiting students heavily under false pretenses, or really without much promise of employment opportunities after students completed their degrees. Is it right for taxpayers to be subsidizing educational attainment that they themselves might not have pursued? So that goes back to like, if we want this to be a financial assistance measure, it doesn’t really make sense just to limit it to students who’ve attended college. If we want it to be promoting college access, would you want to focus as much on prospective or current students? The one part of this conversation that I think is interesting is to point out how loan forgiveness is formulated. Is this idea that Pell Grant eligible students can have more loans forgiven up to $20,000, if they received a Pell Grant before? It’s a statement from the White House saying Pell Grants should have been larger before.

Randy: When you look at this, and understand that one third of West Virginia College graduates leave debt free, and you look at President Biden’s relief program here, his loan forgiveness program, we circle back to what you first said, it’s a multi-faceted reason why this is happening. And it will have a multi-faceted effect on West Virginia and its students.

Hughes: In addition to people who might leave debt free, there’s students who have a small amount of debt, who might attend for a semester, or might take some courses, but not complete a credentialed degree. And it’s these students with the smallest loan balances, where we often see the highest default rates, because students didn’t finish. So some of that we might say, ‘Okay, this loan forgiveness, even forgiving loans under $10,000 balances would help students at risk of default.’ It’s important that students have opportunities to think about these and then make informed decisions not assuming that college is a necessity, but thinking about what are all the sorts of possible career paths. And then if college is right for a student, and they don’t have the ability to pay out of pocket right away, borrowing can be helpful.

Student Enrollment Is Down In W.Va. K-12 Schools This Year

Student enrollment in West Virginia’s K-12 public schools has decreased this year.

West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch told West Virginia Board of Education members this week that enrollment in West Virginia public schools has dropped by more than 1,400 students compared to last year.

The drop, according to Burch, is due to continued population loss in the state and the impacts of the pandemic.

For the 2021-2022 school year, there are 250,899 students enrolled in public schools in the state.

Additionally, the state board of education agreed to permanently close and consolidate schools in Hampshire and Lincoln counties.

Hampshire County will close John J. Cornwell Elementary School ahead of schedule due to enrollment decreases, safety concerns and required educational needs. It’s one of five elementary schools earmarked to close after the county passed a school construction bond in 2020.

The board also approved the closure and consolidation of Duval pre-K-8 and Midway Elementary in Lincoln County due to structural concerns. The facility closed in July.

Students at all three schools have been reassigned temporarily to nearby schools until consolidation can begin.

The board also placed the following policies on public comment until Dec. 13, 2021:

Policy 2315, Comprehensive School Counseling Program will be repealed and replaced to update content to align with current terminology in the West Virginia School Counseling Model and W.Va. Code §18 5 18b.

Policy 2322, West Virginia System of Support and Accountability has been revised to clarify accountability requirements for all public schools. It will also embed requirements for county board of education member-training currently outlined in Policy 3235, Definition of Good Cause Failure to Receive School Board Training, which will be repealed. Additionally, it will embed West Virginia Report Card requirements currently outlined in Policy 7300, Better Schools Accountability: School, School Districts, and Statewide School Report Cards, which will also be repealed.

Policy 5100, Approval of Educator Preparation Programs has been revised for the purpose of adding clarifying language.