Written by Ainsley Hall and published in The Journal on October 2, 2025, link to article HERE.
SPRING MILLS — The Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications at Shepherd University invited three Public School Superintendents to come have a discussion at the Education in the Eastern Panhandle from Legislation to Lesson Plans event on Sept. 29. Guests gathered at Spring Mills High School to listen to the panel talk about local schools and answer important questions about education.
The panel included Ryan Saxe from Berkeley County Schools, Chuck Bishop from Jefferson County Schools and David Banks from Morgan County Schools. The discussion was led by Hans Fogle, executive director of university communications at Shepherd University.
They started by talking about student achievement and whether or not West Virginia is following the national trend of school children falling behind academically. Saxe explained that the entire state recognizes that West Virginia is not where it should be, but they are seeing change on a legislative level that gives schools more flexibility. Combined with innovative local leadership and student focused instruction, Saxe believes West Virginia schools will close the gap.
“We are seeing the fruits of that labor here in West Virginia,” Saxe said. “You’ll not that over the last two years at least, the academic achievement across the state of West Virginia has been improving, not to the point where we need to be, but we are on the right track. And there’s a lot of good things going on in public school districts across West Virginia, especially right here in the Eastern Panhandle. And I think that what you’re going to see is that in the years to come, we will very quickly close the gap as it relates to achievement across the United States.”
During the discussion, the superintendents were asked about state decisions, including house bill 3035 and how it will impact the schools once it goes into effect next year. Banks said that he believes the bill is exceptional and will provide training for teachers. Some of the teachers that are already going through the training say it’s the best they’ve ever had according to Banks. It also promotes parental communication, making sure they are involved in their child’s education, and a part that deals with retention.
“There are a lot of different opinions on retention, but I think that’s well thought out too because not every student, regardless of whether they’re on a grade level, should be retained, and so they’ve listed many exemptions, especially for exceptional children,” Banks said.
They also talked about Senate Bill 568 which addresses chronic absenteeism within schools. The bill requires schools to reach out to parents or guardians when a student has an excused absence and allows attendance directors to make legal complaints if a student has more than 10 excused absences. Bishop said the bill helped Jefferson County Schools as it improved the chronic absenteeism rate by 3%. However, it takes a lot of work from school staff to make sure students are in the classroom.
“A student can be chronically absent right now,” Bishop said. “We’ve been in school approximately 35 days, and if you’ve missed 3 and a half days, you right now are considered chronically absent. So, it’s an ongoing target.”
For more information about the Stubblefield Institute and its upcoming events, visit https://stubblefieldinstitute.org/.