Article written by Ainsley Hall and published in The Journal on July 9, 2026, link to full article HERE.
Berkeley County Director of Special Education for grades 6 to 12 Michele Tost will represent West Virginia after receiving the Special Education Legislative Summit (SELS) scholarship. She is one of six educators across the country to advocate for students with disabilities. This gives Tost the opportunity to participate in the summit at Washington D.C. and speak with elected officials about the funding, mental health and educator shortages in special education.
The SELS is put on by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and the Council for Administration and Special Education (CASE). Every year educators around the country come to connect, learn and find ways to better serve their students. Tost started teaching in 1986 and worked as a special education teacher before joining Berkeley County’s Special Education Office in 2013. As a member of CASE, she often gets emails and attends conferences through the organization. When she first heard about the SELS scholarship, she saw it as a great opportunity.
“I got an email and they asked if I was willing to go down as someone from West Virginia,” Tost said. “So, of course, I said yes, because I know that Berkeley County is very unique in West Virginia as far as the school districts. There are many districts that are closing schools and losing a lot of enrollments for many reasons. Berkeley County is very different, and we are opening new schools and our population is just getting more and more.”
It’s Tost’s goal to explain to representatives how unique Berkeley County is and the challenges it faces. There are many students from Virginia and Maryland who transfer into Berkeley County, but some are placed outside the county to receive services because the schools can’t accommodate them. Tost hopes that with enough funding and support for the specialized programs, these students can finally get what they need right here.
However, Tost isn’t just representing Berkeley County, but the entire state of West Virginia. She hopes to make a difference by being the first educator in West Virginia for several years to participate in the program. Tost and the Director of Special Education for Pre-K to 5th grade Kelli Duranko will travel to the capital on July 19 to July 22 to participate in sessions talking about funding for special education and more.
In addition to funding, Tost believes the biggest need when it comes to special education is more certified teachers. Being so close to Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, many teachers choose to go across state lines because they are paid more, making it difficult to find qualified teachers to support the program. Getting locality pay would help, but Tost also talks about the importance on mentoring and coaching new teachers.
“I do recruiting for our county and one of the questions I’m asked, no matter what state I go to, is what support do you have for new teachers,” Tost said. “So I think that the support and the follow-up is imperative to prepare these teachers and then sustain and retain the teachers. It’s not always about money. It’s also the support.”
Tost looks forward to visiting Capitol Hill on July 21 to talk directly with elected officials. In the future, she hopes more educators from West Virginia will get involved and be given the opportunity to attend the summit and share what is happening in their own districts. She is just one voice, and she believes it’s important to have many perspectives to make education in West Virginia better.