The Reconnecting McDowell effort announced Monday its focus during the next year will be on economic development, social/health services and instruction.
Reconnecting McDowell is a public-private partnership aimed at revitalizing McDowell County schools and communities. The American Federation of Teachers and more than 100 partners got together in working groups Monday in Charleston.
American Federation of Teachers national president Randi Weingarten says some good foundations have been laid in McDowell County since the effort began in Dec. 2011 but the work is far from over.
“There’s been a budding of a lot of real interesting projects but that’s not where we want to end,” Weingarten said.
The accomplishments include high-speed internet to all McDowell County schools, a multi-million dollar commitment to provide internet to homes in the county, literacy centers in five schools, books for students to take home and a residential treatment center groundbreaking.
Weingarten says with some building blocks in place the next biggest item has to be economic development.
“With economic development comes jobs, with jobs comes revenue, with revenue comes ways in which you can do a whole bunch of other things,” Weingarten said. “But more important than that, with jobs comes hope.”
Weingarten says she doesn’t see the effort running out of steam. She says there were more partners at Monday’s meeting than there were when Reconnecting McDowell kicked off almost a year and a half ago.
“There’s a sense of hope and now it’s a matter of really being very thoughtful about instruction, about social services and economic development,” she said.
But there’s no mold for what they hope to accomplish according to Weingarten. She says there will be ups and downs but the hard work must continue.
“There’s not a formula. There’s not an algorithm. There’s not some secret sauce here,” she said. “This is a lot of work to try and envision and then actually make real the commitment to reconnect McDowell.