CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — While West Virginia’s monitoring system for public schools can uncover shortcomings involving numbers and data, hurdles to learning – including toxic cultures and work environments – may go undetected.
In October, the state school board voted unanimously to immediately intervene in the Logan County school system. An investigation found failures involving classroom learning, teaching environments, school safety, special education student needs and questionable spending of hundreds of thousands of dollars of your money.
The West Virginia Department of Education's 2022 report on county approval status and accreditation does list Logan's status as "on watch,” but the classification doesn’t automatically raise an alarm as 53 of the state’s 55 counties are on the list. Only Doddridge and Ritchie counties are not.
Numbers didn't uncover the issues in Logan County. People did.
Limited by state code and the authority that's given to local school systems, there's only so much the Department of Education can monitor. While data may be available for review, offices in Charleston may not detect serious problems with school culture.
West Virginia Department of Education deputy state superintendent Michele Blatt noted the severity of problems in Logan County schools may have not surfaced if people within the system had not come forward with concerns and complaints.
“I think that’s a very hard thing to do from Charleston,” Blatt told Eyewitness News. “We have...
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