Third Grade Success Act Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

First Special Education Day Raises Awareness Of Lack Of Staff

Special education instructors, students and their families gathered at the Capitol Wednesday to advocate for more support in their classrooms during the first ever Special Education Day.

Special education instructors, students and their families gathered at the Capitol Wednesday to advocate for more support in their classrooms during the first ever Special Education Day. Organizers filled the lower rotunda with students from Kanawha County’s self-contained classrooms.

Blaire Malkin, a staff attorney at Mountain State Justice, said these are students with the most complex needs who need the most support day in and day out. Malkin is also president of the board of Exceptional Possibilities of West Virginia, a nonprofit that creates and advocates for events and resources for individuals with disabilities and their families. She said the day is meant to raise awareness of special education needs.

“It’s a chance for special education teachers, aides and students to come to the legislature and promote the need for more special education teachers and aides in the state and also get the students a chance to see how our state government works,” Malkin said

She further highlighted the shortages in special education classrooms, noting some unintended consequences of education legislation passed last year.

“When the legislature passed the Third Grade Success Act last year, it required aides in all first-grade classrooms,” Malkin said. “So nearly half of special education aides left special education for those jobs, because those jobs are frankly easier and pay slightly more.”

Rachel Brown is a special education curriculum specialist for Kanawha County Schools. Kanawha County Schools is the state’s largest school district with more than 23,000 students enrolled, accounting for close to 10 percent of the state’s public school enrollment. Brown works closely with the county’s self-contained classrooms.

“Out of my 66 classrooms, half of my classrooms are staffed with long term substitute teachers, or alternative certification candidates,” she said. “We have untrained teachers, and we do have a strong alternative certification system in Kanawha County schools, but you’re getting your training on the job.”

Brown is also one of the lead organizers for Special Education Day at the Capitol. She says the unintended impact of the Third Grade Success Act on special education classrooms is set to worsen in the coming years.

“A lot of my aides in Kanawha County Schools have moved to first grade,” Brown said. “Next year, all of our second-grade classrooms are going to have aides as well. In the following year, third grade is going to be staffed with aides. It’s decimated my population of aides in my classrooms, and they are essential for my classroom success. Our students need a lot of care.”

Brown hopes a proposed pay raise of 10 percent for self-contained teachers and 5 percent for self-contained aides in SB 680, introduced by Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, can help keep special ed educators in their classrooms.

“I hope this shines a light for legislators,” she said. “A lot of the common public doesn’t know about my type of classrooms, we are the 1 percent. And it’s easy to just shut the door and not even notice they’re in schools. And we want to raise awareness and make sure that the legislature knows about our students and our needs.”

Brown says Special Education Day made history by bringing the most people with disabilities ever to the Capitol at one time.

“I wanted to have a day for the students,” she said. “I also wanted the legislature to be able to see our students. The Capitol is a beautiful place, our state capitol, and they don’t get to get out and do a lot of things. This gives them the opportunity to come here and just be a part of session.”

State Educators Hope To Transform Students’ Reading Ability Early

Studies show that if children aren’t up to speed by the third grade it can indicate future difficulties in and out of the classroom. A new law is now in effect across West Virginia to implement more effective reading education.

Reading is a fundamental life skill. Studies show that if children aren’t up to speed by the third grade it can indicate future difficulties in and out of the classroom. A new law is now in effect across West Virginia to implement more effective reading education.

At the Bruceton School in Preston County, Robin Hagedorn’s first graders are preparing to break up into small groups for the day’s reading lesson.

“It takes me a whole month to train my kids in their stations, so that they know what to do,” Hagedorn said. “I was nervous, and I worried, and I wanted to make sure I had all of my ducks in a row for Miss Vicky and myself.”

Miss Vicky is Vicky Nieman, a paraprofessional that joined Hagedorn’s classroom this year. Hagedorn says she is so grateful to have the extra help because individualized learning in small, student-led groups by six-year-olds is made much easier by having another adult in the classroom. Nieman agrees.

“Having that second person you can just jump in, if you see somebody getting off task or needing a page turned, and you don’t have to disrupt the whole entire class. I feel like it’s going smoothly,” she said.

Nieman is in a first-grade classroom this fall thanks to House Bill 3035, also known as the Third Grade Success Act. Passed earlier this year by the state legislature, the law aims to address low reading and math test scores across the state.

“I think the legislature understood the need to close the achievement gap as it pertains to literacy in our state,” said Jonah Adkins, director of the office of pre-K through 12 academic support for the West Virginia Department of Education. “They saw the need in general to do something, to address our deficits. There was a sense of urgency there.”

The most recent results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress published October 2022 showed that West Virginia students had some of the lowest reading scores in the nation and were at least 10 percent behind the national average.

Adkins says bringing extra help into the classroom will be one of the most visible changes of many implemented by the law. But he points out the name Third Grade Success Act only hints at the scope of the undertaking. The work to ensure that students are reading on level by the third grade starts much earlier.

“That would actually be kindergarten through third grade that are actually getting this instruction,” Adkins said. “Now, the first-grade classrooms, they are the ones that were introduced to our EL-CATs, early classroom childhood assistant teachers were introduced to first grade this year. Next year, they will be introduced in second grade and the year following, they will be introduced in third grade.”

The state’s educators aim to achieve results through several changes including regularly screening and assessing students’ development, continuous contact with parents and guardians and focusing instruction on what is called the “science of reading.”

Mindy Allenger, associate professor of literacy instruction for pre-service and in-service teachers at Marshall University, said phonemic awareness is the foundation of how children learn to read. Phonemes are the distinct sounds that make up a word.

“We’re segmenting a word by sounds like cat C-A-T and we’re manipulating; if I take off the C and add a M, that’s Matt. So that’s manipulating,” Allenger said. “All of those are features of phonemic awareness.”

West Virginia is following the lead of other states like Mississippi and Tennessee that focus on evidence-based fundamentals like phonemic awareness to produce repeatable results across classrooms. Before, most counties tended to choose one curriculum and stick to it. Now, teachers are welcome to draw from multiple sources as long as what they implement is aligned with the science of reading. Allenger likens it to medical care: what worked in the past shouldn’t trump cutting edge research.

“We’re not looking at anecdotes, where I say, ‘Oh, well, my little one learn to read like this,’ or ‘I like to teach like this,’ or ‘This is how I learned.’” she said. “Instead, this is all based on research. And so it’s quantitative, meaning we have numbers, it’s reliable. And reliable just means ‘Can the results be reproduced, no matter who’s testing, no matter what conditions, and it’s valid, meaning that it’s really testing what it says it’s gonna test.”

Allenger and other educational trainers say the science of reading already underpinned most literacy instruction nationwide, so teaching programs have not had to change their curriculums. Before this year, the level of awareness of the science of reading and its application have varied greatly from county to county in West Virginia. That led the Department of Education to launch a teacher training initiative.

“As you can only imagine we’re on all different levels across the state,” said Kelly Griffith, coordinator for the office of pre-K through 12 academic support of the West Virginia Department of Education. “We have some people that they’re just learning about the signs of reading, they’ve never heard it before. But then we also have some really great high fliers that have been using it in their classroom, and that we are highlighting as model examples in the classroom.”

She says the state office has been hosting trainings all summer and into the fall, as well as creating a library of resources online.

“We’ve been doing regional rollouts for the county level. We’re taking the county level admin, the LEA’s of each county, and we are training them on all of the resources that we have developed to date,” Griffith said. “They have everything that we’ve developed for educators. Our plan is to build the capacity in the districts and support them because they know best the needs of their individual counties and where their teachers are.”

One of the next steps for the implementation of the Third Grade Success act will be a focus on numeracy and math education, another subject where state test scores have lagged after the COVID-19 pandemic. But in these early months the focus for Allenger and other educators remains on reading.

“The inspiration and the hope that if I can make sure that all my little first graders leave, knowing how to read, what other gifts could you give to someone’s life, then teaching them how to read?” Allenger said.

Justice Highlights Literacy Awareness Day Friday

Gov. Jim Justice is encouraging all West Virginians to reflect on the importance of early childhood literacy Friday.

In July, the governor declared Oct. 20 as National Early Childhood Literacy Awareness Day in West Virginia.

During his regular briefing Thursday, Justice called childhood literacy “absolutely essential.”

“The more you have the opportunity to read to a child at a very, very young age, do that because it will only make them better and better readers as we go forward,” Justice said. “Those folks that are great readers seem to excel in every way.”

The proclamation Justice signed cites the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results that were published in October 2022. That test showed 78 percent of West Virginia’s public school fourth graders performed below the NAEP Proficient level in reading, compared to 68 percent nationally.

The recently implemented Third Grade Success Act hopes to address early childhood literacy shortfalls.

“Research tells us that a child’s vocabulary at the age of three is a strong predictor of their reading proficiency in the third grade,” Justice said. “The more that we’re able to teach them to read, and read to them, the more their performance is off the chart.”

Justice also took a moment to acknowledge the work of his wife, Cathy Justice, and the Communities in Schools initiative for helping students.

Literacy Program Unintentionally Pulling Resources From Special Education

As a side-effect of legislation passed earlier this year, 41 percent of special education aides in the state have moved into first grade literacy aide positions.

State Superintendent Michele Blatt told legislators during Monday’s meeting of the Legislative Oversight Commission on Educational Accountability that the shift is an unintended consequence of House Bill 3035.

The Third Grade Success Act is meant to address literacy and numeracy in early education by bringing more aides and specialists into first, second and third grade classrooms across the state. Implementation has begun this fall in first grade classrooms, with second and third grades to follow in the coming years.

Blatt said the data is based on a survey of 48 counties, and represents some 249 aides that have transferred out of special education.

Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, said legislation often creates unforeseen issues, but keeping special education aides needs to be addressed.

“We need to find a way that we can entice them to stay in those harder positions,” Grady said.

Del. Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, asked how the special education aides were being replaced.

“Many of them have been replaced with people, new positions, people trying to get into the system,” Blatt said. “We can follow up and see how many of those are actually still shortages, but I do know, we still have some shortages and some day to day subs in those classrooms.”

Addressing The Teacher Shortage In West Virginia

As a new school year begins West Virginia continues to struggle with certified teacher vacancies, but educational leaders are working to change that.

Caitlin Nelson knew from a very young age that she wanted to be a teacher.

“I knew as a ninth grader that I wanted to be a special educator,” she said.

Now she’s living that reality as a K through 5 autism teacher in Raleigh County. But looking around at the changes the state has made in recent years to help people become educators, Nelson can’t help but wish her path had been laid out as smoothly.

“I would have loved to have the opportunity to not have to worry about debt and do what I love,” she said. “I also like the aspect of starting it in high school. If I would have had that opportunity, I would have achieved so much more years before I actually started achieving.”

Facing a teacher shortage that was only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, West Virginia has begun implementing several changes to get more certified teachers into classrooms.

Earlier this year, House Bill 3035 created the Third Grade Success Act which will bring paraprofessionals into first grade classrooms this fall. A paraprofessional is a teaching-related position within a school responsible for concentrated assistance for students. Under the Third Grade Success Act, these educators will try to address reading and math skills early-on. Literacy and numeracy paraprofessionals will also be added to second and third grade classrooms in the coming years.

But, in a work pool spread so thin, the new paraprofessional positions have already started to draw existing teachers away from special education.

“It is really discouraging as a special education teacher to see people don’t really have the desire for special education,” Nelson said. ‘If I need a sub, I hardly ever get a sub unless I’m personally friends with them. It’s not something people just pick up on the hotline.”

Paraprofessionals will play an important role in the state’s educational future, but teachers continue to be the backbone of the system. And despite alternative pathways, many still get into teaching through a traditional university program.

Teresa Eagle, dean of the School of Education at Marshall University, said today’s recruitment problem is nothing new.

“Enrollment in educator preparation programs, which is what we call teacher ed, across the country has been down drastically, not just recently, but for the last 10 to 15 years,” she said.

Eagle said enrollment is starting to trend back up, but still not where they need to be. In the last few years, she has noticed a change in her students. They’re as passionate as ever, but more and more candidates are moving away from the profession.

In the past, Eagle said education was almost a family business, with children following their parents into the profession. These days, however, people are more likely to steer their children away from teaching due to the low pay as well as increasing difficulty and decreasing respect for the profession.

But the state is trying to make it easier than ever for those who took a detour from education to get certified and into a classroom. Passed in 2021, Senate Bill 14 created alternative pathways to allow people who already have a bachelor’s degree to receive a Professional Teaching Certificate.

“What I’m seeing is people in that program are people who knew they wanted to teach but they allowed parents, family, whatever, to guide them in a different direction for things other than the passion for teaching,” she said. “Now they’ve decided, that’s really what I wanted to do in the first place.”

Autumn Cyprès, dean of West Virginia University’s College of Applied Human Sciences, recognizes the pressing need for alternatives, but urges caution as well as respect for the teaching profession.

“There is an assumption made with the field of education,” Cyprès said. “Everybody went through school. So it’s really easy to jump and say, ‘Well, I went through a school so now I know what it means to be a teacher.’ You have no idea. Just because you went to school doesn’t mean that you understand or are going to be good at being a teacher.”

Cyprès said the demands being made of teachers are not new, but rather are now more formalized which allow programs like the one at WVU to better prepare teachers for the needs and demands of modern students.

“Education is a profession. It is one that is not paid enough in my view, but throwing more money at education isn’t going to be the answer,” she said. “Thinking more deeply about the nuances of education and where the purpose of school bleeds into very deep societal issues in our democracy, of equity, of health care, access to social supports, all of that feeds into the challenges that a teacher needs to face.”

Cyprès said part of the issue facing education is how to help someone understand their level of commitment to the profession. She believes one way is to talk to people who are starting to realize they might like education.

That’s exactly what Carla Warren, the officer of academic support and educator development for the West Virginia Department of Education, has been working to do. She is overseeing the launch of the state’s Grow Your Own initiative which gives students a fast-track into the education field through a combination of dual enrollment/Advanced Placement courses and an accelerated pathway.

“We are entering this first year of full implementation carrying about 177 students over from the pilot year with several students graduated,” Warren said. “So we’re pulling about 177 students forward, and we will begin building from there.”

On top of getting students to commit to the teaching profession early, Warren is taking advantage of the recent action of the U.S. Department of Labor to recognize teaching as a registered apprenticeship.

“When we started, West Virginia was the second state behind Tennessee to register the teaching occupation, as a registered apprenticeship,” she said. “It provides us the opportunity to access workforce dollars that we can use to reach that vision of removing those barriers of cost and providing those wraparound services for students.”

While Grow Your Own is an ambitious solution, it will take at least three years to pay out in any meaningful way. Warren said that in the short-term, the state is looking at paraprofessionals to fill the gaps.

“They’re traditionally individuals who wanted to become a teacher at some point, but life put a barrier up,” she said. “We found that that population, they’re already invested in school, they already know what a school system looks like. They want to be a part of that community. And so we feel like that really is a population that is ripe for the picking to create some very high-quality teachers.”

The potential payoff for Grow Your Own and the Third Grade Success Act is years away. But Dean Eagle renews her hope for the future of teaching each May when her students graduate.

“What I do every year when we graduate students is I watch the students cross the stage, and try to pick out the ones that I’m the proudest of, the ones that I know will go out and do a fabulous job and represent us well, be the critical changemakers in their schools and for their students,” she said. “So far, every year, I’ve been able to identify quite a few students like that. And so that’s where I get my positive outlook, that as long as we keep finding these people and putting them out there, then I know that it’s good for the future. It’s good for kids. The problem, of course, is we need more people like that.”
This story is part of the series, “Help Wanted: Understanding West Virginia’s Labor Force.”

Teachers Learning State’s New Literacy And Numeracy Programs

The West Virginia Department of Education is hosting hundreds of educators during the second INVEST Conference of the summer.

Teachers are meeting in Morgantown this week to learn more about the state’s new programs for reading and math.

The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) is hosting hundreds of educators during the second INVEST Conference of the summer.

Superintendent Michele Blatt said this is the second statewide conference to help prepare educators to implement the Third Grade Success Act. Teachers from the south of the state met in Charleston last month.

“It is to begin the implementation of House Bill 3035, the Third Grade Success Act, to start training our teachers and principals on the implementation of the science of reading components,” Blatt said. “And also start with the Unite with Numeracy work around the math skills so that our students can be successful by the time they leave third grade.”

Todd Seymour, principal of Preston High School and a former math teacher said, “This week is all about trying to enhance our reading and math, teaching and learning in the state.”

Seymour said educators are trying to reiterate the foundational courses and skills that impact every educational outcome.

“Not that social studies, or science, or foreign language isn’t important,” he said. “But reading and math are incorporated in all of those. It’s the foundational courses, our reading and math. If you can’t read the social studies textbook, you’re not going to do well. If you’re in science and can’t do the calculations, you’re not going to do well.I think that’s really what we’re trying to do, and trying to come up with research based strategies that are going to help and enhance what we’ve been doing,” he said.

For many educators, INVEST is their first look at the state’s Ready Read Write literacy program as well as the Math4Life: Unite With Numeracy program.

Trenna Robinson, a fifth grade teacher in Elkins, said she’s excited to learn about the Unite With Numeracy program, but that Randolph County has been proactive in improving its math base.

“Schools were allowed to have their own math team and we meet after school, and we actually had our own math getaway, which was really cool,” Robinson said. “Teachers brought different ideas. It’s all new up and coming things to help make our students successful.”

She said with the setbacks of COVID-19, teachers as well as students and parents need to refocus and get back to where they need to be, and both small, local teams as well as statewide conferences, contribute to that.

“I like our small teams, because we can focus on our students and our needs within our buildings and our county,” Robinson said. “I also think this is really beneficial because we see large groups of people, and see different ideas from different places and get their ideas and see what we can use to help our students be successful.”