Local students participating in Black History Month tour of Washington DC
Feb. 20—By GREG JORDAN
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD — Visiting the nation's capitol and historic Black colleges and universities are the goals of an upcoming Black History Month bus tour for Mercer County students.
Mercer County Schools Superintendent Ed Toman recently spoke with the Bluefield Board of Directors about a Feb. 29 bus trip which will take about 40 of the county's high school students to Washington D.C. While visiting the capitol, they will have the opportunity to meet an official with the U.S. Department of Education.
Toman, who said he is on a national Science, Technology, Engineering and Math consortium, recalled meeting Dr. Bernadine Futrell about 10 years ago.
Futrell is now the Assistant Secretary for Equality and Discretionary Grants and Support Services Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Last summer during a consortium meeting in Leesburg, Va., Toman spoke to Futrell about Bluefield State University. She invited Toman to bring Mercer County Schools students to visit her in Washington D.C.
Later, Dr. William White, formerly with the West Virginia Board of Education, visited Toman and said that he would like to take some area students on a tour of historic Black colleges and universities.
"And I said that's awesome," Toman recalled.
February is Black History Month, so a tour has been scheduled to visit Dr. Patrell on Feb. 29 and March 1, he said.
'We went to the high school principals and said let's get the word out. I've got 41 kids signed up to take a chartered bus," Toman said. 'We'll meet 4 o'clock in the morning from Bluefield and we're going to get to see Dr. Partrell about 10, and then we're going to go to Howard and tour Howard. We'll go to the monuments. We'll go to the museums."
Students from PikeView, Princeton, Montcalm and Bluefield high schools are going on the upcoming tour, Toman said. After visiting the nation's capitol, the students will visit Howard University, which is located there. Toman said Howard University is "the Harvard" of historic Black colleges and universities.
"I think it's an incredible opportunity and I think it's a first, what we're doing and we're not stopping," Toman said to the city board of directors. "I've got (board of education) support and I wanted to share that with you all."
White spoke to the board of directors about the need to emphasize education in the Bluefield area.
He said he grew up in Bluefield at a time when "education was very, very important" and Bluefield was always ranked high as a place to get an education.
Unfortunately, attitudes about education have changed, he said.
"Education is not important anymore," White said. "We've got to get education back on top."
People talk about making the city of Bluefield better, but making sure students learn what they need to know is essential.
"Well, we're not going to do anything without education," White said.
White said he has a granddaughter in the third grade and helps her catch up on her studies.
"Covid killed us, folks. Our kids are way behind. They're way behind," he said. "Our kids are behind. We've got to get them back up to where they're at grade level and to where they can compete."
"One part of the problem is a lot of our parents don't have the skills or they don't have the time to work with these kids. They're doing their jobs and some of them just don't have the will to do it," White said. "But our kids are suffering. I sit down with my granddaughter and I work with her for at least an hour a day just to get her back up to speed. And these kids are bright. There's nothing wrong with them. We just don't have the things in place to help these kids."
White said local businesses could work to help promote education.
"I've always been a big believer in private/public partnerships," he said. "We need to start getting our businesses involved. We're educating our kids for free for the businesses in these communities. We need to talk to businesses and ask how they can help our schools. How are we going to maintain (businesses) if we don't have an educated populace?"
— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
