By Stephen Smoot
In the wake of COVID lockdowns and other disruptions, Pendleton County Schools, along with almost every school system in the nation, faced significant challenges. Despite the best efforts of education professionals, given the restrictions imposed during the pandemic, student skills and achievement dropped significantly.
Related to the lockdowns and intertwined with the issue of declining scores lay the low motivation of some students to attend school – and of a small percentage of parents or guardians to make them.
Facing vital student achievement indicators starting to dip in the wrong direction, Charles Hedrick, Pendleton County Superintendent of Schools, and the county board of education created a new position, school improvement coordinator. They appointed Barbara Whitecotton, an education veteran who served as superintendent for Hardy County Schools, to serve in that position.
Last week, Whitecotton attended the regular second meeting of the month of the board of education to report on student progress and how staff and faculty worked to facilitate it.
She commenced after J. D. Wilkins, president of the school board, gave his customary invocation, which included “almighty God, we thank You for bringing us together tonight.”
“I asked Charles Hedrick if I could have three hours,” Whitecotton joked. “He said ‘no.’”
Taking pains to say that she was not referring to her own hiring, but of the creation of her job, Whitecotton said that it was “possibly one of the best decisions that you made . . . it needed to be done.”
She added, “I took on the task of school improvement and we’ve made some gains.”
Those gains showed themselves in the benchmark testing results for math and reading. Between Aug. 18 and Sept. 29, in mathematics, 19 percent of all students tested below the 25th percentile, 22 percent scored between 25th and 49th, 25 percent between 50th and 74th, and 34 percent above 75 percent.
Four months later, 12 percent tested below 25 percent, 23 percent between 25th and 49th, 26 percent between 50th and 74th, and 39 percent over 75 percent.
In reading benchmark testing, after the first month of school, 28 percent scored under 25 percent, 29 percent between 25 and 49th, 22 percent between 50th and 74th, and 21 percent at 75 percent or better.
The first month of 2024 showed that 17 percent scored under 25 percent, 26 percent between 25th and 49th, 28 percent between 50th and 74th, and 29 percent over 75 percent.
Whitecotton, who has nearly five decades of education experience, emphasized that the numbers tended to show gradual improvement during the school year, in response to changes made in policy at the state and county level, and also by faculty and staff. “Gains came,” she said, “in scores, but also in data analysis, benchmarking, and implementing the strategic plan that “focused on student achievement.”
“One of the standard explanations for student challenges, COVID, no longer resonates with younger students,” Whitecotton said, adding that “some have asked ‘is this COVID?” She said that in terms of the younger grades, “We’re past COVID,” but also stated that the motivation of children in older grades “may be permanently affected” by the impact of closures and lockdowns.
Younger grades, however, are “showing the changes we want to see,” she commented.
She aimed praise at the West Virginia State Legislature for passing statutes geared toward improving achievement in reading and mathematics.
The Third Grade Success Act, originally House Bill 3035 from 2023, “codifies the definition of ‘science of reading’ as evidence-based reading instruction.” Research done worldwide indicates that “phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, plus writing” serves as the basis for reading instruction.
Whitecotton described this as “not a program, but a bucket of research . . . to find out what is the best way to teach children to read.”
While the new standards for reading education “came down on July 1, 2023, with no guidance,” Whitecotton said “Over the year we’ve made progress. The schools have been helpful. They’ve been asked to do things they didn’t understand.”
Similarly for math, goals for third grade rely on a philosophy called “Unite with Numeracy.”
Another change that Whitecotton described lay in the creation of “support frameworks for academics, behavior, and mental health.” The West Virginia Tiered System of Support, or WVTSS, establishes a three-tiered system to serve as guidance on when or if to move challenged students from the classroom.
“The best place is the classroom,” Whitecotton began. Tier 1 refers to the traditional classroom and instructional environment. Students falling behind academically, or struggling because of behavior or mental health issues, will advance to the subsequent tiers.
Tier 2, Whitecotton explained requires “a little bit more help with behavior or mental health issues.” Teachers and administrators team up to work together to combine input on students to determine the best solution to meet the needs of the student and classroom.
If students reach Tier 3, they almost always have exhibited mental health problems that prevent them from functioning in class. Whitecotton warned the board that students reaching Tier 3 often have problems that school counselors are ill-equipped to address.
New structures came as a response to not only problems stemming from COVID, but also the impact of the breakdown of the traditional family. Sometimes students grow up in less than ideal environments that cause them to act out in school or develop debilitating mental health problems.
“The battle is worth it,” Whitecotton noted.
