CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia First Lady Cathy Justice said another $5 million in state funding, as proposed in Governor Jim Justice’s budget, would go a long way toward expanding a pilot project aimed at helping the Mountain State’s students do better.
Communities in Schools first launched in Greenbrier County in 2004.
For the current school year, it’s expanded to select schools in Berkeley County, McDowell County and Wyoming County.
“We want to try to get every child graduated in the schools and counties that we’re in. That’s our primary thing that we’re focusing on right now,” Cathy Justice recently told members of the state Board of Education.
The West Virginia CIS is part of a national effort aimed at helping students stay in school and prepare for life.
In the schools involved in CIS, school-based site coordinators serve as mentors to the students and collaborate with community partners to meet their needs when it comes to academic, behavioral and social issues.
“We have to kind of go back to the simplicity of basic needs for kids,” Justice said.
“All these kids have the same basic needs. We have the same problems, it doesn’t matter where we’re located geographically.”
In 2017, for example, five site coordinators were working in Greenbrier County along with an afterschool program coordinator and a part-time case manager in the following eight schools:
Alderson Elementary, Crichton Elementary, Rainelle Elementary, Ronceverte Elementary, White Sulphur Springs Elementary, Eastern Greenbrier Middle, Western Greenbrier Middle and Greenbrier East High.
The graduation rate for CIS students in Greenbrier County is 100 percent, according to Justice.
If the Legislature approves the funding, First Lady Justice said between 15 and 20 schools could be added next year in other parts of West Virginia.
That won’t be the end of it, Justice pledged.
“We have big plans to go to other places,” she said.
Justice said initial state seed money would be used provide coordinators for every school, training for support staff, encourage families to get involved and help address basic needs like food, housing, clothing and health care.
With community support, Justice said the CIS programs could become financially independent after three years.
“We need grants. We need businesses. We need people to sponsor this and get involved in it,” she said.
“We have a good response right now from our educators and also from the business communities that are really working with us and becoming involved in it.”