District Administration - May 2012 - (Page 30)

McDowell county (w.Va.) Public SchoolS DistrictProfile By Jennifer E. Chase The Reconnecting McDowell Initiative A community in economic and educational decline is boosted by a unique public-private partnership. CRITICS OF FAILING SCHOOL systems often ask the same chicken-oregg question: Do educators and environment cause kids to fail, or do failing students weigh down the teachers and districts around them? McDowell County Public Schools, a rural district amid the hills of Central Appalachia, is the poorest county in West Virginia and the eighth poorest in the country. More than half of McDowell’s students do not live with their biological parents because of circumstances such as imprisonment or hospitalization, and McDowell has the highest rates of obesity, teen pregnancy, unemployment, dropping out, and drug and alcohol addiction in the state. Kids who make it to school have long been taught in classrooms with too little bandwidth to properly connect to the Internet, and in buildings with original desks and paint. After-school programs don’t exist because of a lack of busing. And, with McDowell’s 52 teaching vacancies in the Superintendent Jim Brown joined the district in 2009, and sees the day-to-day successes of Reconnecting McDowell, which strives to address the social and educational problems that come from being the poorest county in West Virginia. Superintendent: Jim Brown Students: 3,535 Schools: 12 (includes one alternative school and one technology center) Staff: 321 District size: 550 square miles (21,000 residents) Students receiving free or reducedprice lunches: 86% Per-pupil expenditure: $12,260 Dropout rate: 3.5% (2010) Web site: boe.mcdo.k12.wv.us/ mcdowellcounty/site/default.asp McDowell county (w.Va.) Public ScHoolS 2009-2010 school year—the result of attrition from teachers retiring or resigning to teach elsewhere—kids were lucky if they saw a steady face at the front of their classroom. For its low performance, the West Virginia Board of Education took control of the district in 2001. But, when a decade of oversight hadn’t changed children’s outcomes, the board’s vice president, Gayle Manchin, was both appalled and embarrassed. “It was very apparent that ‘education’ alone could not increase student achievement, nor was continuing to do what we had always done going to yield different results,” says Manchin, who has been on the board since 2006. “It was not a lack of effort that was the problem; it was a lack of comprehensive effort.” The origins of McDowell’s circumstances didn’t matter to educators and politicians close to the district, but finding a better way to fix them did. Spurred by Manchin, the American Federation of Teachers and West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin are leading a public-private partnership in hopes of enhancing educational opportunities in the district and addressing community problems inherently caused by chronic poverty and economic decline. An army of stakeholders now hopes to stabilize the county and increase student achievement through the innovative initiative “Reconnecting McDowell.” Partners in Hope Since Reconnecting McDowell was announced in December of 2011, partners comprising businesses, foundations, government, non-profits and labor have signed a covenant in which they promise to assist in the areas of education; services for students and their families; transportation; technology; housing; and jobs and economic development. First Book has given all McDowell students at least District Administration 30 May 2012 http://boe.mcdo.k12.wv.us/mcdowellcounty/site/default.asp http://boe.mcdo.k12.wv.us/mcdowellcounty/site/default.asp

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - May 2012

District Administration - May 2012
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Sustainability Update
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Problem/Solution
Product Focus
Digital Reading Empowers Students
The Critical Task of Hiring a New Chief
Hard Acts to Follow
Leading the Way
Sally Reis & Joe Renzulli
CIO News
Not Your Mother’s Student Information System
Professional Opinion
Noteworthy Books
New Products
Going Mobile

District Administration - May 2012

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