Marion Board of Education applauds teachers, programs throughout the county
Oct. 18—FAIRMONT — Teachers and administrators in Marion County Schools continue to impress.
Monday, the Marion County Board of Education met for its regular session and teacher achievement was a recurring theme on the agenda.
Starting off the meeting was Fairview Elementary Principal Mel Coleman, who gave a report on his school's student achievement and his staff's best practices adopted so far this year.
Several old programs have been continued and improved this year, such as the school's attendance incentive, which allows kids to win prizes for good attendance numbers with the coveted prize being a brand-new bicycle.
New practices, such as working with grandparents who are raising school-aged children and teaching students a "virtue of the day" have also been added to the school's daily proceedings.
"We strive to be the best possible school environment for all students. Some examples like the walkthroughs and principal involvement in classroom activities," Coleman said. "Any time I'm walking through and see the kids doing something fun, I love to jump right into it too."
Coleman also touted his team's trip to the Model Schools Conference and the valuable information they gained from the experience. He also reported good numbers in this year's start-of-year student assessments.
"Since I've been following Fairview, you do have wonderful community and parent involvement and support over there for such a small community," Board President Donna Costello said. "That speaks to the good work you're doing over there."
The board was also glad to hear about positive work being done at the Marion County Technical Center and in its neighboring school, North Marion High.
The board approved a new program for the technical center that will bring in hands-on, work-based learning through a program called Advanced Career Education.
"This is a program that the Marion County Technical Center has been working on," School Superintendent Donna Hage said. "This will take the students and give them opportunities outside of the technical center and into businesses and industries and doing some job shadowing to learn experiences in the workforce."
In addition to the strides being made by MCTC, North Marion High is getting to work as one of the states 12 pilot schools in Gov. Jim Justice's GameChanger initiative.
Hage said the district is using this opportunity to also include the county's other two high schools in the programming as much as possible to share the programs across the county.
GameChanger is a three-year endeavor and will continue in North Marion for the next few years. One of the first steps will be meetings within the school's curriculum team to assess improvements and other strategies to address issues within the communities and the student population.
The Marion County Board of Education will hold its next regular meeting on Nov. 7 a 6 p.m. in the central office.
Reach David Kirk at 304-367-2522 or by email at dkirk@timeswv.com.
