Running for the Border: Why teachers are leaving the state

HINTON, WV (WVNS) — Over the past several years, West Virginia has seen a mass shortage of teachers. There are several reasons for this shortage from pay rates to budget cuts.

Summers County Comprehensive High School boasts more than 700 students from grades 6 to 12.

They currently have 45 members of their staff, but the school is still in need of teachers. Leon Franklin is the current in-school suspension teacher with more than twenty years of teaching experience.

He started teaching in Virginia, then moved to Summers County in 2003. Franklin said West Virginians need to make a hard choice about where the education system goes from here.

“West Virginia and its citizens, its politicians, and everybody have to decide and make that hard decision – is education valuable or not? If it’s not, then we need to reassess what we’re doing,” said Franklin. “If it is, then we need to start having accountability from teachers, administration, state government, federal government, local government, local boards of education, teachers, and all the way down to students and parents.”

Franklin said Virginia uses a system of testing that makes its students pass end of school tests in order to get verified diplomas to graduate.

This system forces students to take accountability for their own learning, but it also forces teachers to take accountability to make sure the lessons they give are comprehensive and understood.

Therese Waldron teaches 8th grade science.

She said after spending time teaching overseas, she has learned that parents need to be held accountable as well and that they should get more involved with their children’s education.

“In the Philippines, parents are extremely involved. In Asian countries, that’s very common, but here it’s not as much,” said Waldron. “I wish that the parents would be a lot more eager to help their children and further their education.”

Waldron said if parents were more involved, the students and their teachers would benefit.

She said that parents’ comments can really affect how teachers work and how they continue in their education.

According to Shannon Barnett, a recent transplant from the Florida education system, it could be the material itself that poses a problem.

“The only difference I would say is I feel like I’m still teaching what I would have taught in middle school. That it’s a little behind, education wise,” said Barnett.

Those are three reasons for why teachers are leaving the state from three teachers who came here to teach. They say with accountability, parent participation, and raising the level of standards, West Virginia’s education system can make the turnaround it so desperately needs.

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