West Virginia Board of Education Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Student Discipline, Financial Literacy Discussed At State Board Of Education Meeting

For the past several years, educators have identified worsening classroom behavior and discipline as key issues in state school systems.

For the past several years, educators have identified worsening classroom behavior and discipline as key issues in state school systems. A recent Senate bill aimed to address discipline in elementary grades but failed to pass the House of Delegates during the recent regular legislative session.

Jim Brown, executive director of the West Virginia School Board Association, told the state Board of Education Tuesday the bill was focused on punishment and does not deal with typical discipline matters.

“Having served as an elementary principal and a school district superintendent, I can attest this punitive approach fails to address the underlying issues and provide these students with the supports they need to succeed,” he said.

Brown said elementary schools are ill-equipped to manage, let alone address, the mental health issues students are dealing with and that schools should “not attack the child, but attack the behavior.”

“Only a small percentage of school districts in our state have an established alternative learning environment for elementary age students,” he said. “We need to acknowledge the reality of mental health challenges faced by our school-aged children, and the varying degrees of crisis they experience. It is imperative that we conduct an honest review of the supports available across our state, from urban communities to the most rural settings. To have that effectively address this pressing issue.”

Brown finished his statement by calling for the establishment of a statewide task force that brings together educators, mental health professionals, community leaders, parents, and policymakers to develop a holistic strategy to tackle the mental health crisis in schools.

His sentiments were echoed by others addressing the board, including West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee, as well as West Virginia Professional Educators Executive Director David Gladkosky. They discussed the possibility the bill could be brought back up in a proposed special session this month or in May.

Financial Literacy

Several West Virginia Board of Education policies were placed on public comment during the April meeting, including Policy 2520.4, relating to West Virginia College and Career Readiness Standards for Social Studies. The proposed changes would separate personal finance, which is currently taught as part of required civics courses, out to its own standalone requirement and course

Board member Debra Sullivan questioned the wisdom of splitting the two subjects. Joey Wiseman, director of West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) Office of Student Enrichment, said the intent of the personal finance was always to have it be a separate course, and doing so allows educators and students to better focus on each subject.

“Now those standards look the same as a personal finance [course] they’re teaching in CTE (career and technical education), it’s the same all the way across,” Wiseman said. “It’s a very rigorous set of standards.“

He also pointed out that personal finance will not become a required credit for another two years, giving teachers and schools time to fit the new course into schedules.

WVDE Regional School Safety Meetings

During last month’s board meeting, the West Virginia Department of Education announced a series of school safety conferences across the state this spring. Dates have now been scheduled for the 2024 Regional School Safety meetings. The meetings will bring together county and school administrators as well as school safety personnel to share administrative updates that are important during a crisis event. Topics include updates on how to submit plans and code student data. Dates and locations include:

May 7, Embassy Suites, Charleston
May 10, White Palace at Wheeling Park
May 13, West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
May 16, West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind (WVSDB)

Amid Close Call, State Board Of Education Renews Focus On School Safety

Some of the state’s public schools are not in compliance with a safety requirement aimed at facilitating emergency response.

In an illustration of the need for such requirements, a school safety officer told the state Board of Education a possible school shooting in Cabell County last week may have been thwarted by a tip.

Tony Smith, an officer with the school safety unit, told the state Board of Education Wednesday the student had a manifesto and a list of students and administrators he planned to kill.

Jason M. Spears, Cabell County prosecuting attorney, confirmed to West Virginia Public Broadcasting that the incident is under investigation, but declined to comment further due to the ongoing nature of the situation, as well as the involvement of a minor.

“We take threats of school shootings, or violence in schools, very seriously and give them our utmost attention,” Spears said.

Yet, Smith told the board that not all districts are in compliance with a law that requires school safety programs.

“We still have some schools that drag your feet on it,” he said. “But we are telling those folks and superintendents, we got to have those. Those have to be up to date, because in an unfortunate incident that we got a hot call on, this stuff has to be up to date.”

Passed in 2019, House Bill 2541, titled the School Access Safety Act, requires county boards of education to implement school safety programs that include placing room numbers on exterior walls or windows of school buildings, and providing local first responders with up-to-date floor plans.

The plans should be provided by Sept. 1. Smith said some schools his team has reviewed have exterior numbers that do not match the room’s actual number inside the school. Numbering is an issue the board has focused on in recent months.

Jonah Adkins, director of the office of pre-K through 12 academic support for the Department of Education told the board in December that state superintendent Michele Blatt had offered to have the numbering and lettering created and delivered to non-compliant schools free of charge.

Board President Paul Hardesty said he wants the names of all schools that have not completed their crisis reports to be published on the board website immediately.

“Any school that does not have enough or think it’s important to comply with this, shame on you,” he said. “And we will expose you for what you are. And if that’s being mean, I’m just mean. I take this very seriously. That’s why school safety is a standing item on the agenda since I took this presidency.”

Smith said tips like the one that alerted officials to the situation at Cabell Midland come from the state’s See Send app, which allows all community members to notify authorities of concerns or report an incident.

“From Jan. 1 2023 to Jan. 1 2024, we had 537 tips,” Smith said. “Fifty-six of those were immediate threats, we have diverted some serious school violence. Thirty-eight of those involve some type of gun threat.”

Other Business

The board approved a statewide waiver of Policy 2340, section 4.8.a., allowing students attending virtual charter public schools to test remotely for the West Virginia General Summative Assessment in grades 3 – 8.

Board member Debra Sullivan was the sole vote against the approval of the waiver. She asked Vaughn Rhudy, director of assessment for the state Department of Education, why students of virtual charter schools could not go to a local brick and mortar to take their assessments as do students attending virtual programs administered directly by the state or county.

“That would be something that the charter schools would have to arrange with the counties and I think last year, what the virtual public charter schools did, because that provision wasn’t in state law last year,” Rhudy said. “I don’t know if they reached out to county schools to try to do that. I think that we’ve heard reports that some county schools were reluctant to do that to allow those students to come into their schools.”

Sullivan said it appeared that the waiver would give students of the virtual charter schools a privilege not afforded to other students.

“Even though we have all these virtual students across the state, in various iterations, a subset of them is being told that you can stay at home,” she said.

Sullivan also expressed concern that virtual students were being deprived of one of their few opportunities to have an in-person interaction with instructors and other students.

“Having children appear once a year to come in in person and take a test and see somebody’s face to face, it seems to me that that’s an important thing,” she said. “It’s good to have eyes on kids…It shouldn’t be considered a burden to bring kids in to be tested on site. “It’s really an opportunity for teachers to get to know these kids, because they don’t have that. And with everything being virtual, there’s a lack of connection.”

The waiver takes effect this spring and will utilize the Cambium Assessment Remote Testing/Proctoring tool. The school, proctors, parents and students are required to agree to all state requirements. The waiver does not apply to the West Virginia Alternate Summative Assessment, the English Language Proficiency Assessment-21 (ELPA) or the SAT School Day.

State Board of Education Reviews Teacher Pay, Middle School In Monthly Meeting

Advocates are calling for a pay raise for the state’s teachers, and a middle school in Barbour County gets a state review.

Advocates are calling for a pay raise for the state’s teachers.

Gov. Jim Justice and legislative leaders have already indicated they will pursue a pay raise for teachers and other state employees during the 2024 legislative session to help cover the increased cost of insurance. But at the state Board of Education meeting Wednesday morning, union representatives said the proposal isn’t enough.

Fred Albert, president of the American Federation of Teachers – West Virginia, stressed that low pay is contributing to the state’s teacher shortage, and requires a more aggressive approach.

“AFT supports increasing teacher and support staff funding and asked the West Virginia Legislature to provide appropriate funding for a three-year salary increase package, a $7,000 raise across the board for teachers, service personnel and public employees, and an automatic cost of living increase,” he said.

Albert stated that many educators are leaving the profession, frustrated by working conditions that don’t contribute to their success, leading to chronic staffing shortages.

Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, compared the legislative response to the school funding situation to similar staffing issues in corrections and medicine.

“When they had a problem with corrections, they gave the corrections officers a $10,000 raise,” he said. “When there’s a shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas, what do we do? We increase the reimbursement from PEIA from 35 percent of Medicare to 110 percent of Medicare. It’s time to address the issue with educators too.”

Lee highlighted the flipside of the staffing issue, noting that enrollment in educational programs across the state continues to drop.

David Gladkosky, executive director of West Virginia Professional Educators, also addressed teacher pay in his remarks outlining his organization’s legislative goals. He also touched upon issues of pay for retirees, as well as further legislative corrections to address discipline.

“What we’re hearing from our teachers out in the counties is that they’re not seeing consistent steps taken to address discipline problems, even though this bill (HB2890) from last year did try to do that,” Gladkosky said. “But we’re still, we’re not seeing enough consistency and enough support in dealing with discipline problems. So I do understand that this is going to be looked at again. And so we support that highly.”

Special Circumstances Review

Later in the meeting, the board approved the Special Circumstance Review of Philippi Middle School in Barbour County and recommended corrective actions. The review was initiated in November 2023 by the West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) as a result of student safety concerns and a lack of adequate progress in the school improvement process.

The county superintendent and school principal have been in their current positions since July 2023, and most of the issues precede them. Barbour County Schools Superintendent Eddie Vincent told the board he came into the position knowing there was work to do.

“We’ve asked for help, I actually asked for the special circumstance review to assist us along the way and knowing that this is a process that we owe Barbour County and to our kids,” he said.

Board President Paul Hadesty thanked and complimented Vincent for reaching out.

“It is not our primary objective to be punitive in nature,” he said. “We’re here as a support mechanism, but we can’t support people and help them unless we know there’s a problem.”

The review resulted in 22 areas of non-compliance and five findings. These range from student achievement, well-being and safety to discipline and administrative protocols. The recommendations outlined include the immediate hiring of a certified school counselor; the implementation of a disciplinary matrix and improvements to the school’s Special Education practices.

State Board Of Education Approves Closure Of Four Elementary Schools

The West Virginia Board of Education approved the closure of four elementary schools in three counties, raising concerns among community members.

The West Virginia Board of Education approved the closure of four elementary schools in three counties during their meeting Dec. 13, 2023.

H.E. White Elementary School and Lizemore Elementary School in Clay County, as well as Ranger Pre-K through 5 in Lincoln County will close at the end of the 2023-2024 academic year. Norwood Elementary in Harrison County was already closed under emergency procedures in July after structural engineers identified issues that made the building unsafe for students.

In their impact statements, both Clay and Lincoln counties cited declining population and enrollment for the closures. Senate Bill 51, which went into effect on June 5, requires impact statements including transportation time of the affected students be written in certain instances of school closing or consolidation.

Clay County said their overall student enrollment has decreased by 19.2 percent, representing a loss of 385 students from 2015-2016 to 2022-2023. Lincoln County stated an enrollment decrease of 7.8 percent, representing a loss of 794 students over the last 10 years.

Several parents and community members spoke in opposition of the closures in Clay and Lincoln.

Christina Mounts said she did not understand why Ranger Elementary was being singled out for facilities issues that are also present in other county school buildings.

“The comprehensive educational facilities plan identified most of these same deficiencies as present in at least five of the other schools in Lincoln County,” she said. “Why are the other five schools not being held to the same standard?”

Mounts called Ranger Elementary the heart of the community, and its closure would not be in the best interest of students’ educational needs.

Mike Nichols said due to its rural setting, the closure of Lizemore Elementary will have a greater impact on the local community than a closure in an urban area.

“Often in urban areas, there are community centers, other schools, other facilities close by where kids can still meet and play and practice,” Nichols said. “No such luxury exists for our community. Our area, the school and the gymnasium are the community center. The ball field and the playground is the park. They go away, we have nothing. Nothing.”

Longer bus routes resulting from the school consolidations was a particular concern amongst the speakers. All three counties applied for waivers to create bus routes longer than 45 minutes for the new consolidated schools. Under WVBE Policy 4336, county boards of education cannot create a bus route longer than 15 minutes over the 30 minute maximum recommended duration for elementary school students without state board approval.

Lynn Taylor spoke against the closures of H.E. White Elementary School and Lizemore Elementary School in Clay County. She and others said they had been told new bus routes could be as long as 70 minutes. Taylor, who has a child with autism, also raised concern of sending her children so far away from their parents.

“What’s gonna happen when he goes to Clay and we’re an hour and a half away from him?” she said. “That’s the things that we see that’s gonna happen with these closures of the schools. The parents aren’t going to be close enough to make kids feel secure. The parent involvement is going to drop in the schools.”

Phil Dobbins, superintendent of Clay County Schools, said the closure of Lizemore Elementary would shorten existing bus routes, most of which run close to or over an hour in length from first pick up to drop off at the elementary school.

“These routes will be shortened by about 10 minutes because buses will not have to make the loop at Lizemore Elementary to safely drop off, get back out on the highway and head to Clay (Elementary),” he said. “So that 10 minute decrease would reduce those times to 50 minutes, 57 (minutes), 43 (minutes) and 50 minutes respectively and again, we’re not creating any new route.”

Board member Debra Sullivan questioned the broader trend of closures and consolidations in the state, with particular focus on the role of state policy in the issue.

“Is it our counties’ fault that the state population has fallen over the past two plus decades?” she said. “Is the school aid formula addressing the realities facing our schools today? Is the formula taking into account poverty rates and percentages of children needing special ed services?”

Sullivan noted that many of the schools being closed in recent years are older, and built to accommodate former, larger populations.

“Only a fraction as many students are now enrolled,” she said. “Applying building utilization percentages based on 20 or 25 students, it’s an old metric. It doesn’t support today’s reality.”

Board President Paul Hardesty reminded Sullivan and the rest of the board that they were not considering an issue of policy, and were required to vote in accordance with the existing regulations.

All four closures and bus route waivers were approved.

Manchin Isn’t Seeking Reelection And WVPB Remembers Woody Williams In New Documentary, This West Virginia Week

On this West Virginia Week, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced Thursday he will not seek re-election to the United States Senate, and WVPB will premiere its newest documentary about the late Hershel “Woody” Williams this weekend.

On this West Virginia Week, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced Thursday he will not seek reelection to the United States Senate.

Also this week, state agencies partnered with the FBI to conduct antisemitism training for law enforcement, a settlement in a lawsuit alleging inhumane jailhouse treatment is pending, Breeze Airways has added a new route to its service from West Virginia’s Charleston International Yeager Airport, and the West Virginia Board of Education issued a state of emergency for Special Education Services in Hampshire County Schools.

Finally, thousands gathered at the state Capitol to see the West Virginia tree that’s going to the U.S. Capitol for Christmas, and WVPB will premiere its newest documentary about the late Hershel “Woody” Williams this weekend.

Randy Yohe is our host this week. Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert.

West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Caroline MacGregor, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Liz McCormick, and Randy Yohe.

Learn more about West Virginia Week.

State Of Emergency Declared For Hampshire County Special Education

The review identified issues with administrative processes, incomplete, incorrect or out-of-date Individualized Education Plans (IEP) and inconsistencies in special education curriculum across the county.

The West Virginia Board of Education has issued a state of emergency for Special Education Services in Hampshire County Schools.

The West Virginia Department of Education’s Office of Accountability conducted a Special Circumstance Review in September of Hampshire County Schools following a “lack of progress” over a three-year period on an improvement plan that was developed for the county.

That plan included increased monitoring and technical assistance from the state, but the state board said sufficient progress wasn’t made during that time.

The September review identified issues with administrative processes, incomplete, incorrect or out-of-date Individualized Education Plans (IEP) and inconsistencies in special education curriculum across the county.

The review also identified inexperienced, uncertified or long-term substitute teachers in special education roles. And three schools in the county do not have any certified special education teachers. The review noted, however, that the county reported finding it challenging to recruit and retain certified staff.

State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt was directed by the state board to appoint designees who will coordinate on-site school improvement efforts.

The county will have six months from the time it receives recommendations to make changes before the state board considers additional action, according to a news release.

This designation joins recent state of emergencies issued by the West Virginia Board of Education in Upshur and Logan County Schools. Both school systems were taken over by the state board after investigations by the West Virginia Department of Education discovered financial misconduct.