Challenge West Virginia

The recent school consolidation proposal by the Fayette County Board of Education was not in the best interest of the students, teachers or communities in Fayette County. Bigger is not necessarily better.

There are better ways of successfully approaching and solving the school problems in our system.
Arguments presented to support the need to consolidate four of our smaller schools were that greater efficiency could be achieved by decreasing the number of teachers and by increasing the number of course offerings.

We all agree that operating our schools as efficiently and effectively as possible with a rich array of courses is of the utmost importance and that we all need to strive to reach the highest of goals for our students.

However, the big challenge in reaching this goal, in my opinion, is intensified by the procedural process that is practiced in West Virginia in the certification of teachers. This certification procedure, propagated by the West Virginia Board of Education and used by teacher-training institutions, greatly restricts the number of classes and grades in which our teachers are permitted to teach. The educational system should provide greater flexibility, in terms of utilizing teachers, by expanding their certificate endorsements as well as making it possible for our teachers to teach a greater variety of courses with a given certificate.

For example, there is not a sensible reason why a social studies teacher should not be able to teach any social studies course in all grade levels. Teachers who have taken a rich college curriculum in the area of social studies should not be narrowly defined by certification to teach only grades 9 to 12, or grades 5 to 8. Whether it be social studies, English, science or other areas, a certified teacher should be able to teach any course in their field of certification.

This situation is multiplied many times over as certification tends to narrowly limit what subjects and what grade levels are included on the certificate. In a small school, it is important to have teachers certified in more than one subject area. Certification procedures used in prior years enabled graduates to teach in major and minor fields — thus enabling them to teach in at least two areas. The teaching certification in two areas seems either to have been discontinued or not encouraged. The state Board of Education, in conjunction with the colleges, are equal culprits in destroying smaller schools and are major advocates for consolidation.

Transporting hundreds and even thousands of students on a daily basis does not improve, in any way, the education of our students. It would be far better to have one or more teachers to travel from school to school on a half-day basis or even on a semester basis to improve the curriculum offerings.

I firmly believe that initiating the following recommendations in our school system would result in a viable and successful alternative to school consolidation in West Virginia, one of the most rural states in the nation:

| Relax the narrow certification requirements.

| Share teachers (including the specialized teachers) locally and statewide.

| Utilize the Internet (a great resource) for distance learning for classes that traditionally have small enrollments.

Providing the best schools to meet the needs of our students is a goal that must be achieved in Fayette and all counties.

Edwards, of Fayetteville, was Fayette County schools superintendent for 14 years.