By Stephen Smoot
The COVID pandemic served as a body blow to school system efforts across the state and the nation to educate individual children and to also meet collective expectations of achievement. Pendleton County was not immune to the strains induced, and in some ways faced more difficult challenges than other areas.
The county system faces overall problems partly related to COVID, but also part of trends and issues already facing remote rural areas.
That said, the county school system and each school have put together plans, programs, and partnerships designed to bring support to every individual student in a variety of ways, both academically and socially.
Statistics in recent years have raised some concerns. The West Virginia Department of Education Balanced Scorecard rates schools in different categories as “exceeds standard,” “meets standard,” “partially meets standard,” and “does not meet standard.” Behavior at all elementary schools fell under “exceeds standard,” while attendance fell under “partially meets standard.”
Brandywine Elementary School scored well academically, meeting or exceeding in all academic areas. Franklin and North Fork partially met standards in most areas. Franklin fell just short of partially meeting standards in mathematics, while North Fork exceeded state standards in English and language arts.
Pendleton County Middle/High School fell short of partially meeting standards in both English and mathematics, but exceeded state expectations in graduation rate. Attendance was also rated a problem area by the scorecard.
The website SchoolDigger.com reported that West Virginia as a whole had not fared well in key areas. Pendleton County seventh graders outpaced the state in English and language arts, 40 percent to 38 percent meeting standards. They came within three percentage points of students across the state, of whom 30 percent met standards in mathematics.
For 11th graders, the same site reported that 20 percent across the state met math standards with Pendleton students at 17 percent. In English and language arts, 30 percent of Pendleton students met standards. In science, 19 percent of county students met standards.
Across the state and the nation, school systems struggled with the academic disaster created by COVID lockdowns. George Washington High School in Kanawha County, whose entire student body uses a college prep program and also draws students from one of the most affluent areas in the state, saw just around 40 percent of their 11th-grade students meeting state math standards. Just more than half of the 11th graders met standards in science.
The years before the pandemic showed gains in Pendleton schools. Between 2018 and 2020 middle school results had shown stark improvement. Reading jumped 11 percentage points to 48 percent. Math results collectively rose from 26 to 33 percent.
COVID lockdowns, however, took their toll. Reading scores dropped 16 percentage points and math sank by 11. State mandates that upended student routines and imposed virtual schooling in an area with enormous gaps in internet service hurt student achievement.
Barbara Whitecotton, a 47-year veteran of public education, has served as Hardy County superintendent, principal of Franklin Elementary School, and now holds the newly created office of school improvement coordinator.
Whitecotton explains that the COVID lockdowns “affected the social well-being of children, adolescents, and adults.” She added that “they lost a lot of direct instruction and that’s delayed them immensely.”
Last March, the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic studied the effects of lockdowns and mandates on academics in the elementary and secondary school system. According to a Heritage Foundation report on its workings, “student achievement on a national comparison, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, administered by the U.S. Department of Education, fell by the largest amounts ever recorded between two test administrations (2019 and 2022) in fourth- and eighth-grade math.”
It also reported that “in every state, academic proficiency declined.” Data indicated “compulsory reliance” on virtual or remote schooling “imposed enormous educational costs” and that “the longer students were out, the greater the educational loss.”
Expert testimony also shared that “children who could avoid lockdowns and attend Catholic or other private schools were one-and-a-half to two years ahead of their public school counterparts.”
This undergirds Whitecotton’s assessment that for most students “virtual school is not the same as a teacher standing in the front of a classroom.” While she said, “The minority of students can do that, the majority of students took a significant hit.” In too many households, Whitecotton affirmed, “education took a back seat” to video games, television, and other recreational activities.
This did not necessarily happen because parents did not care or try, but because not every parent has the ability to teach complex subjects well, even if they are knowledgeable themselves. Other families still had parents having to leave the house and work, meaning that little time remained for parental direction.
The impacts affected different groups of children in different ways. Whitecotton stated that “we have a group of younger ones that didn’t have routine daily teaching” and sometimes lack the understanding of how to function in a typical school environment. Even more detrimental, she said, “The middle students have skills, but did not learn how to apply them.” They, Whitecotton surmised “took the greatest hit” because “they have the basics, but didn’t make them functional skills.”
At the same time, and perhaps partly related to COVID, came a number of retirements from Pendleton County schools, particularly in the middle grades. “All these teachers who were teaching a long time left,” Whitecotton said, adding that “that was the beginning of a difficult situation.”
Rural state school systems struggle to recruit in the best of times, but COVID pushed Pendleton County into exploring alternative certification teachers. Whitecotton explained that “they’re catching on. They’ve stepped up to the plate.”
Pendleton County Schools has also entered into a partnership with Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College to give local high school students the opportunity to start teacher training early. They earn college credits toward an education degree as high school students, can complete their degree in two years after high school, then return to Pendleton County and teach. This should help to alleviate some of the recruitment problems and also keep teachers who have ties to the area.
Whitecotton also warned of another trend that has harmed student achievement and started before COVID, saying that an overall national cultural “shift toward a lower expectation of performance” has negatively impacted schools and student achievement. People both outside and inside the school system, she says, must “get on board with raising that expectation.”
Whitecotton is encouraged, however, saying “Pendleton County Schools still care. We have people here at all levels who see the issues. They know the issues.”
She added that “we had a jolt, but Pendleton will move forward.”
