Gov. Patrick Morrisey preaches holding a “Backyard Brawl” competition to bring economic growth to West Virginia. I’m here to inform him the brawl is on. Bring tissues. We are losing.
The duel is happening at the Randolph County Board of Education most nights over the next few days. Teachers don metaphorical armor and arms. Helmet. Shield. Lance. Teachers are dismissed as our population shrivels, and funding along with it (since funding is based on head count).
This shocking practice is called RIFing. It stands for “reduction in force,” and the term is whispered almost like a taboo among teachers. It is a traumatizing word.
In minutes at public hearings, teachers must prove why they matter. What matters more? Biology or calculus? Music or visual arts? (Randolph County has not had a public arts program for the younger grades in years.) How disrespectful to teachers to make them defend their professional value. (In a profession that matters more than nearly any other.) That is humiliating and degrading. Students have been present to support their beloved teachers.
There are enormous teacher vacancies, yet teachers are being dismissed. (Many classes are entirely run by substitute teachers.) This irony is mind-boggling. As a result of teacher cuts, class sizes balloon. Grades are combined into a single classroom, pushing the legal limit. Quality is compromised. Teachers are set up to fail.
This year, I wrote an op-ed published in the Gazette-Mail about the essentiality of saving two tiny schools in Randolph County. This decision was highly controversial. The choice: Support a handful of students in our most rural areas or hurt their education (particularly Pickens School) and save many teachers from being cut at other schools. The closure of those schools might have helped the budget next year, but, the year after, more would need to close, etc. It is a bandage, not a cure for our fund shortage.
Levies are part of the issue. And our land has been so corrupted and befouled by out-of-state corporations that its value is economically depressed. The federal government tries picking up the slack. These funds support teachers, our most low-income students, those with special needs, and provide needed medical care in schools. These funds are now halted. This leads to mass teacher firings. These layoffs shake small communities like Elkins, testing its existence. One of every five dollars spent on public education in our state is federal.
Money always exists when the government wants it. Just look at our expanding road infrastructure projects. However, for some reason, money is withheld from our education infrastructure aspirations.
In 2023, the government industry contributed the most to GDP in West Virginia. The government’s focus is on providing public services, rather than seeking profit.
Our children deserve the best arts education in the nation. After all, we have some of the best artists. Elkins is a music mecca and neighbors left, right and center play a folk instrument or sing and dance.
It took decades for West Virginia to catch up to other states in offering advanced-level classes. Now these are stripped away. Our kids fall further behind, wealthier states asserting their dominance.
Having a robust education often correlates with having a higher income. So, while Morrisey claims to want to improve our economics, really, he just wants us impoverished. He doesn’t want us to brawl with another state. He wants us to brawl with ourselves until we tear our own selves apart.
I wish for a day when families do not feel they must leave the state to find a quality education.
As a postscript, Elkins is the only larger city in West Virginia to not have a library. Still waiting. Our kids deserve to read.
Paula Kaufman has taught in five countries and six states, in parochial, public and private schools. She currently teaches in Randolph County. She is a graduate of South Charleston High School and Brown University.
