Hancock County Schools sending delegation to national conference
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NEW CUMBERLAND -- A delegation from Hancock County Schools will be traveling to Colorado this week to attend a conference with the hope of acquiring new skills to better prepare the county's students for their future.
A group of educators and administrators will be in Denver for the Teach to Lead Summit, a biannual conference organized by the U.S. Department of Education.
Weir High teacher Carrie Gillette will be among the local delegation. Speaking before the county school board Tuesday, she explained the summit was developed in 2014, during the Obama administration, with a goal of empowering teachers to make needed changes in their school or community to benefit their students.
"It is a deep dive. It's very intense," Gillette said.
Gillette explained she learned of the summit while attending the Making Schools Work Conference in Orlando in July, along with others from Hancock County. She said they met a representative of the U.S. Department of Education, only to learn she was a Weir High School graduate. That individual recommended Gillette apply for the October summit in Denver.
"They take 20 applicants from throughout the United States," she said, noting the group left Orlando on a Friday, had their application submitted early the next week, and learned two weeks later they had been accepted.
Gillette said the delegation's plan is to focus on the area of post-secondary readiness. The group will be provided access to the Maxwell DISC Assessment, and will be working with educators from across the country, sharing ideas in an effort to better study their chosen area.
Attending the summit also will provide connections with federal grants to assist in funding their efforts, she said.
Board member Larry Shaw pointed out that post-secondary readiness has been an area of concern for Hancock County Schools, with Gillette explaining only 35% of the county's graduates take part in some form of educational opportunity after high school. The remaining 65%, she said, go directly into the workforce.
Her hope is to find ways to provide some type of certification or training to better assist those students.
"They'll have a certification to put them above the hundreds of other applicants," she said.
Shaw said many of West Virginia's county school systems find themselves with similar statistics, but those in the Northern Panhandle have an additional challenge as their students often compete with those from neighboring Ohio and Pennsylvania for work.