Rewrite as a news paper article. List the Salt Shaker Press as the publisher. Name it "More Salt for Thirsty People". Separate each paragraph with two lines. Include statement "An AI Product--Experimental) at the end.
An Anatomy of Decline: Reading Proficiency, Systemic Challenges, and a Path Forward for Pocahontas County Schools
Executive Summary
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the decline in reading skills within the Pocahontas County Schools district in West Virginia. The investigation reveals a crisis rooted not in a single cause, but in the convergence of severe, long-term socio-economic distress, a national and statewide erosion of literacy achievement, and a catastrophic failure of local school district governance and administration. This confluence of factors has created a "perfect storm" that has left students profoundly underserved and has led to a formal State of Emergency declaration by the West Virginia Board of Education (WVBE).
Key findings indicate that reading proficiency in Pocahontas County has been in a state of decay for over a decade, with performance dropping from 48% proficiency in 2011-2012 to just 31% by 2020-2021.1 This decline is significantly worse than that of peer rural districts, with Pocahontas County students in 2024 performing 1.27 grade levels below the 2019 national average in reading, while a cohort of similar West Virginia districts were only 0.04 grade levels behind.2
This academic freefall occurs within a community facing immense hardship. The county's child poverty rate of 26% 3, median household income of approximately $41,200 4, and the second-highest unemployment rate in the state at 6.7% 5 create a foundation of disadvantage for students. This is compounded by a severe digital divide, with 0% fiber or cable availability for most residents and at least 30% of students lacking adequate home internet access.6 The community's entire literacy ecosystem is fragile, evidenced by a funding crisis that threatens the existence of the public library system, which also serves as the
de facto library for two elementary schools.8
While these external factors are significant, the crisis was ultimately precipitated by an internal collapse of the school district's core functions. A Special Circumstance Review conducted by the West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) in October 2024 uncovered a stunning level of mismanagement, including the absence of a process for creating student Personal Education Plans (PEPs), chaotic scheduling and grading procedures, a leadership vacuum at the high school, and non-compliance with special education and safety protocols.10 This administrative breakdown occurred despite the district having one of the state's highest per-pupil expenditure rates, revealing a critical disconnect between funding and effective student services.1
This report concludes with a multi-tiered blueprint for recovery. Recommendations for the WVDE include deploying a hands-on recovery team to rebuild administrative functions and providing targeted support for recruiting critical personnel. The Pocahontas County Board of Education is urged to commission an independent performance audit and focus on rebuilding administrative capacity. At the school level, recommendations include implementing high-dosage tutoring and formally rebuilding the partnership with the public libraries.
Finally, county and state policymakers are called upon to address the systemic issues of library funding and the digital divide, which are essential for creating a resilient educational environment. The path forward requires immediate, decisive, and coordinated action across all levels of governance to restore basic functionality, rebuild community trust, and give the students of Pocahontas County the educational opportunities they deserve.
Section I: The National and State Context for a Literacy Crisis
The acute decline in reading proficiency observed in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is unfolding against a backdrop of a national and statewide literacy crisis characterized by a decade of stagnating and declining student performance. This broader context is essential for understanding the external pressures acting upon the district. However, it also serves as a critical point of comparison that highlights the unique severity of the local situation.
While national trends provide a partial explanation, they do not provide an excuse; rather, they underscore the heightened vulnerability of a district like Pocahontas County to systemic shocks and the urgent need for targeted local interventions.
1.1 The Nation's Report Card: A Decade of Decline, Accelerated by Crisis
Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often called "The Nation's Report Card," paints a grim picture of reading achievement across the United States. The decline in scores is not merely a post-pandemic anomaly but the continuation of a troubling trend that began over a decade ago.12 The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated educational disruptions served as a powerful accelerant to this pre-existing decay.14
In 2024, average reading scores on the NAEP fell by another two points for both fourth and eighth graders compared to the already low scores of 2022. This drop compounded a steep three-point decline seen in both grades between 2019 and 2022.12 The pervasiveness of this issue is stark: not a single state registered gains in reading at either grade level in the 2024 assessment.12
The decline has pushed a historic percentage of students below the NAEP Basic achievement level, which indicates only partial mastery of fundamental skills.16 In 2024, an alarming 40% of the nation's fourth graders and approximately one-third of eighth graders performed below this minimum benchmark—the largest percentage ever recorded for eighth grade.12
Functionally, this means a vast portion of students struggle with foundational reading tasks such as sequencing events in a story, identifying a character's motivation, or stating an author's purpose.15 Fewer than a third of students nationwide are performing at or above the
NAEP Proficient level, which signifies competency over challenging subject matter.12
Critically, this decline is not being felt equally. The 2024 results were driven primarily by score drops among lower-performing students, widening the achievement gap between the highest- and lowest-performing quartiles to a chasm of approximately 100 points.12 This indicates that the students most in need of academic support are the ones falling furthest and fastest behind. This pattern of diverging outcomes is exacerbated by systemic issues like chronic absenteeism, which nearly doubled from pre-pandemic rates and remains stubbornly high, further limiting instructional time for the most vulnerable learners.13
1.2 West Virginia's Enduring Literacy Challenge
Within this national context of decline, West Virginia's performance has been consistently and significantly worse. The state's students have long struggled with literacy, and recent data confirms that the gap between West Virginia and the rest of the nation is widening.
In 2022, the state's average fourth-grade reading score on the NAEP was 205, a full 11 points below the national average of 216.14 The average eighth-grade score was 249, compared to the national average of 259.14 These scores represented historic lows for West Virginia, erasing decades of progress.14
While the 2024 results showed a statistically insignificant one-point uptick for fourth graders to 206, eighth-grade reading scores fell further to 247.21 Both scores remain far below the national averages and are significantly lower than the state's own performance in 1998, when West Virginia's eighth graders actually outperformed the national average.20
The percentage of students failing to meet basic benchmarks is alarming. In 2024, 47% of West Virginia's fourth graders and 42% of its eighth graders scored below the NAEP Basic level in reading.22 This crisis in K-12 education is mirrored in the adult population, where an estimated 41.8% of adults read at a third- to eighth-grade level, and another 20.9% read below a third-grade level.26 This creates a cycle of low literacy, as parents with limited reading skills often struggle to support their children's academic development.
Socio-economic factors are a powerful and persistent driver of these poor outcomes. The link between poverty and educational achievement in West Virginia is inextricable.18 In 2022, fourth-grade students in the state who were eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP)—a proxy for low-income status—had an average reading score that was 24 points lower than that of their non-eligible peers.19
The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) has acknowledged these deep-seated challenges through the launch of statewide initiatives like "Ready, Read, Write, West Virginia".27 This program is designed to implement the "Science of Reading," a research-based framework focusing on five key pillars: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.28
While this represents a sound, evidence-based policy response at the state level, its effectiveness is contingent on competent implementation at the local level and its ability to overcome the powerful headwinds of poverty and absenteeism. State assessment data shows only marginal gains, with overall English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency inching up from 44% to 45% in the most recent reporting year.29 This suggests that even well-designed, top-down initiatives struggle to gain traction against the state's foundational socio-economic and systemic challenges.
Section II: Quantifying the Decline: Reading Performance in Pocahontas County (2009-2024)
Moving from the broad national and state context to the specific case of Pocahontas County Schools, the data reveals a local crisis of alarming depth and duration. The decline in reading skills is not a recent development but a sustained, multi-year trend that has left the district's students significantly behind their peers, both within West Virginia and nationally. The quantitative evidence demonstrates a systemic failure that predates the pandemic and has been uniquely severe compared to other similar rural districts in the state.
2.1 Longitudinal Performance Trends: A Steep Decline
Multiple data sources paint a consistent picture of a precipitous drop in reading proficiency within Pocahontas County Schools over the past decade. State test score data reported by Niche shows that 38% of students are proficient in reading.30 Data from Ballotpedia provides a more granular and damning historical timeline, tracking the percentage of students proficient in reading on state assessments.
This data shows a peak of 48% proficiency in the 2011-2012 school year, followed by a steady erosion to 42% in 2017-2018, 35% in 2018-2019, and a low of just 31% in 2020-2021.1 This represents a loss of nearly one-third of the district's proficient readers over nine years, a trend that clearly began long before the educational disruptions of 2020.
This academic decline has occurred in parallel with a dramatic collapse in student enrollment, which is both a symptom of broader community decline and a contributing factor to the schools' struggles. The district has shrunk from 1,202 students in the 2009-2010 school year to just 893 in 2022-2023, with a projection of only 864 for the 2024-2025 school year.1
This represents a nearly 30% loss of the student body in 15 years. Such a drastic reduction in enrollment can strain a district's ability to offer a wide range of courses and specialized support services, while also concentrating socio-economic disadvantage among the students who remain. This creates a vicious cycle: declining community prospects and school performance lead to out-migration and lower enrollment, which further weakens the school system's capacity, leading to even poorer outcomes.
2.2 Benchmarking Performance: Falling Behind Peers
Perhaps the most telling evidence of a localized crisis comes from the Education Recovery Scorecard, a collaborative project between Harvard and Stanford Universities that measures learning loss in grade-level equivalents relative to a 2019 national baseline. According to this metric, the average student in Pocahontas County experienced a staggering 1.23 grade levels of learning loss in reading between 2019 and 2022.2 While the district showed a marginal rebound between 2022 and 2024, its performance in the spring of 2024 remained a catastrophic 1.27 grade levels below the 2019 pre-pandemic national average.2
This performance is not simply a reflection of the challenges facing rural West Virginia. When compared to a cohort of similar districts—Nicholas, Hampshire, Barbour, Tucker, and Pendleton counties—Pocahontas County is a significant outlier.
In 2024, the average reading performance in these peer districts was only 0.04 grade levels below the 2019 national average. In stark contrast, Pocahontas County was 1.27 grade levels below.2 This massive gap demonstrates that the problems in Pocahontas County are uniquely severe and cannot be attributed solely to its rural context or statewide trends. The district is failing its students at a rate far exceeding that of its direct peers.
2.3 Subgroup Disparities: An Analysis of Equity Gaps
The available data clearly indicates that economic disadvantage is a primary driver of underachievement in the district. The Education Recovery Scorecard data from 2019, before the pandemic's full impact, showed that students classified as "Poor" were already performing 1.62 grade equivalents below the national average. In contrast, their "Non-Poor" peers in the district were performing almost exactly at the national average (a statistically insignificant -0.01 grade equivalents).2
This pre-existing, deep-seated achievement gap based on economic status created a highly vulnerable population that was disproportionately harmed by the subsequent learning disruptions.
Due to the county's demographic makeup, which is overwhelmingly white, data for racial and ethnic subgroups is often suppressed or not statistically significant.1 While a gender gap is noted in mathematics performance, with female students scoring lower than males, comprehensive data on gender-based reading disparities was not available in the reviewed materials.2 The primary and most visible equity gap within Pocahontas County Schools is rooted in socio-economic status.
Table 1: Pocahontas County Reading Performance Trend vs. Benchmarks (2011-2024)
Note: Data availability varies by year and source. "N/A" indicates data was not available in the reviewed materials for that specific metric and year. State test proficiency percentages and grade level equivalents are different metrics and are not directly comparable.
Section III: The Socio-Economic Landscape of Pocahontas County
The academic crisis detailed in the preceding section cannot be understood in a vacuum. It is inextricably linked to the profound and persistent socio-economic challenges that define the daily reality for many families in Pocahontas County. The school system operates within a community characterized by high poverty, low income, limited economic opportunity, a stark digital divide, and a fragile ecosystem of community literacy resources.
These environmental factors create significant barriers to learning, shaping a child's health, stability, and readiness to engage in the classroom long before the school bell rings. Any attempt to address the academic decline without confronting these foundational issues is destined to fail.
3.1 The Weight of Economic Disadvantage: Poverty, Income, and Employment
Pocahontas County is an area of significant economic distress. The overall poverty rate stands between 19.2% and 20.8%, figures substantially higher than West Virginia's statewide average of 16.6% and the national average of 12.4%.3 The situation is even more dire for children, with a staggering 26% of individuals under the age of 18 living below the poverty line.3 This aligns directly with school-level data showing a massive pre-pandemic achievement gap between students from low-income and higher-income households.2
This high rate of poverty is a direct result of low household incomes and limited employment opportunities. The median household income for the county, estimated between $41,200 and $43,632 in the 2019-2023 period, is just two-thirds of the median income in the United States and has shown little meaningful growth over time.3
Per capita income is a mere $23,387.4 This economic precarity is exacerbated by a high unemployment rate. In April 2025, Pocahontas County's unemployment rate was 6.7%, the second-highest among all 55 counties in West Virginia.5 This chronic economic instability creates a stressful and often chaotic home environment for students, which is fundamentally at odds with the stability required for consistent academic focus and achievement.
3.2 The Digital Divide: Internet Access as an Educational Barrier
In the 21st century, access to reliable, high-speed internet is not a luxury; it is a prerequisite for full participation in education and the economy. In this regard, Pocahontas County is a "digital desert," placing its students at a severe and compounding disadvantage.
The county has virtually no access to modern, high-speed wired internet infrastructure; fiber and cable are unavailable to the vast majority of households, with availability for each at 0% according to one comprehensive report.6 The primary wired option is Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service from Frontier, which is available to 87% of the county but offers limited speeds that are often insufficient for modern educational applications like video streaming or large file downloads.6
A 2020 report from the school district itself acknowledged that at least 30% of its students and 25-30% of its staff lacked adequate internet service at home.7 This digital divide became a critical chasm during the pandemic, rendering remote learning ineffective for a large portion of the student body. It remains a major obstacle for completing homework, conducting research, and developing the digital literacy skills essential for future success.
The county's "Digital Connectivity Index" score is a dismal 34 out of 100, reflecting that residents are "much more technology-disengaged" than the national average.6
This is not just about infrastructure; it is also about affordability and adoption, with lower rates of device ownership and broadband subscriptions even where service is technically available.6 This lack of access creates a feedback loop, as statewide data shows that internet access is strongly correlated with income and educational attainment, meaning the very populations who could most benefit from online resources are the least likely to be able to access them.37
3.3 The Community Literacy Ecosystem: Adult Education and the Fragility of Public Libraries
The literacy environment of a community extends beyond the school walls. The educational attainment of adults and the health of public institutions like libraries create the ecosystem in which a child's literacy skills are nurtured or neglected. In Pocahontas County, this ecosystem is under severe strain.
Adult educational attainment in the county is low, which directly impacts the level of academic support children receive at home. Only 16% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or higher (9% bachelor's, 7% post-grad).3 Another source using a different metric finds that 21.5% have completed an Associate's degree or higher.38 This context is critical when considering that in West Virginia as a whole, nearly 63% of adults read at or below an eighth-grade level.26
The Pocahontas County Libraries are a vital and beloved institution, serving as a cornerstone for civic engagement and a critical resource in a geographically vast and isolated county.39 The five library branches provide not only books but also public meeting spaces, cultural programming, and, crucially, some of the fastest and most reliable public internet access in the county.39 Their role is so integral to the educational fabric that the McClintic and Hillsboro branches serve as the official school libraries for their respective elementary schools, which lack their own facilities.9
Despite their importance, the libraries face an existential funding crisis. A 2017 report revealed that over half of the library system's budget was derived from Hotel/Motel tax revenue, a funding mechanism that was determined to be illegal under state law.8 This discovery threatened the immediate closure of four of the five branches and the layoff of most of the staff.
The library director has been forced to "desperately" seek grant funding simply to pay the salaries of staff who provide essential library services to elementary school students.9 This precarious situation means that a fundamental component of elementary education in the county is dependent on the vagaries of grant cycles, highlighting a catastrophic failure in the community's support structure for literacy.
Table 2: Key Socio-Economic Indicators: Pocahontas County vs. West Virginia and U.S. Average
Note: Data points are from the most recent available sources and may cover slightly different timeframes. Income figures for WV and US are per capita for direct comparison with one source, while the county figure is median household income.
Section IV: A System in Crisis: Internal Challenges within Pocahontas County Schools
While the formidable socio-economic headwinds and national trends provide a crucial context, they do not fully account for the depth of the academic crisis in Pocahontas County. The evidence strongly indicates that these external pressures converged with a profound and systemic internal collapse of the school district's own governance, leadership, and operational capacity. The WVBE's declaration of a State of Emergency in February 2025 was not a preventative measure but a response to acute, documented mismanagement. This section examines the internal failures that rendered the district incapable of fulfilling its core mission, ultimately turning a challenging situation into a catastrophic one.
4.1 Governance and Leadership Failure: The State of Emergency
The most severe indictment of the district's condition is the State of Emergency declared by the WVBE.11 This drastic step was taken following a Special Circumstance Review conducted by the WVDE in October 2024, which was initiated at the request of the county's own superintendent—a clear signal of a system in distress.10 The review uncovered a pattern of widespread and fundamental failures, particularly at Pocahontas County High School (PCHS), that pointed to a breakdown in the most basic functions of school administration.
The WVDE's findings revealed a shocking level of operational chaos. There was no established process for developing or reviewing student Personal Education Plans (PEPs), a critical tool for academic and career guidance mandated by state policy.11 Student schedules for the 2024-25 school year were not prepared in advance, leading to confusion at the start of the year. The task of transcribing student grades into the West Virginia Education Information System (WVEIS) was assigned to a staff member who had received no formal training beyond watching online video tutorials.10
This operational disarray was symptomatic of a deeper leadership vacuum. The review found that school and central office leadership lacked the experience and expertise to effectively oversee these essential processes. The county had failed to provide adequate mentorship or support to the new high school principal, who was hired in August 2024.
This was compounded by the retirement of the school counselor in September 2024; despite multiple advertisements, the district was unable to find a qualified, certified replacement, leaving the high school without a key student support professional at a time of crisis.10 The review also identified significant non-compliance with state and federal standards for delivering special education services and noted insufficient security measures, creating an unsafe school environment.11
4.2 Human Capital and Resource Allocation: A Paradox of High Spending
A central paradox in the Pocahontas County Schools crisis is the disconnect between financial resources and operational outcomes. Data from the 2020-2021 school year shows a per-pupil expenditure of $17,673, a figure that is relatively high for the state.1 The district also boasts a low student-teacher ratio of approximately 10:1 or 11:1, a metric often associated with high-quality, personalized instruction.30
However, the WVDE's findings demonstrate that this high level of spending has not translated into the necessary human capital to run a functional school system. The inability to recruit and retain a certified school counselor is a prime example of a critical failure in human resources that has a direct, negative impact on students.10 While money was being spent, it was not securing the qualified personnel needed in essential roles. This points to a crisis not of revenue, but of capacity, management, and potentially, budget priorities.
Staffing instability appears to be an ongoing issue. The district's website actively advertises for substitute teachers.44 This aligns with statewide data from 2016 which showed that rural districts in West Virginia experience higher rates of administrator turnover than their suburban or city counterparts.45 Furthermore, the statewide teacher attrition rate is highest among new teachers, creating a "leaky bucket" that makes it difficult to build a stable, experienced faculty.45
The district's fiscal stability was further threatened by the end of federal ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funding after the 2023-2024 school year, which forced the administration to consider a Reduction in Force (RIF), creating additional uncertainty and anxiety among staff.46
4.3 Strategic Drift: The Gap Between Plans and Reality
On paper, Pocahontas County Schools had strategic initiatives in place aimed at improving student achievement. The district developed a strategic plan with the stated goal of increasing ELA and Math mastery by 5% through the use of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and instructional coaches.47 The district also participated in the WVDE's "Sparking Early Literacy Growth" grant program. In 2021, this involved a project to create a peer learning network for K-2 teachers to curb learning loss, and in 2022, it funded a project titled "Creating Thoughtful Writers Through Science".48
The findings of the State of Emergency review reveal a complete and total disconnect between these strategic aspirations and the district's operational reality. High-level initiatives like data-driven PLCs and innovative literacy projects are rendered meaningless when the fundamental administrative systems that underpin all instruction have collapsed.
It is impossible to effectively analyze student data when grades are not being transcribed properly. It is impossible to implement targeted interventions when student schedules are in chaos. It is impossible to foster a culture of academic achievement when the institution responsible for it is failing at its most basic duties. The strategic plans existed, but the capacity to execute them did not. This represents a profound strategic drift, where the district's stated goals were entirely detached from its ability to perform.
Table 3: Summary of Findings from the WVDE Special Circumstance Review (October 2024)
Section V: Synthesis of Findings: Connecting Performance to People and Policy
The decline of reading skills in Pocahontas County Schools is not the result of a single point of failure but the culmination of multiple, intersecting crises. The evidence presented in this report weaves together to form a cohesive narrative of a "perfect storm," where long-term socio-economic stress, a national literacy downturn, and acute local administrative malpractice converged to create the current state of emergency. Understanding how these distinct forces amplified one another is critical to developing a comprehensive and effective path to recovery.
The foundation of disadvantage established the initial vulnerability. As detailed in Section III, Pocahontas County is a community under immense and prolonged economic stress. Decades of population decline and shrinking enrollment have concentrated poverty among the remaining residents.1 Students grow up in an environment with high poverty rates, low household incomes, and limited employment opportunities for their parents.3
This is compounded by a stark digital divide that functionally disconnects a third of the student body from modern educational resources once they leave the school building.6 Furthermore, the community's own literacy ecosystem is fragile, with low adult educational attainment and a public library system—which doubles as the school library for two elementary schools—facing an existential funding crisis.3
This environment created a student population that was already at high risk, with limited out-of-school academic support.
Upon this fragile foundation, the national and state headwinds of declining literacy acted as a powerful accelerant. As outlined in Section I, the post-pandemic era saw historic drops in reading scores nationwide, driven by learning loss and a surge in chronic absenteeism.12 West Virginia was hit particularly hard, with scores plummeting to historic lows and consistently lagging behind national averages.19
For an already struggling district like Pocahontas County, these external shocks were not just parallel events; they were force multipliers. The factors that drove the national decline had a disproportionately severe impact on a student population that had no margin for error.
The final, decisive factor was the internal administrative collapse of the school district itself. As documented in Section IV, the findings of the WVDE's Special Circumstance Review paint a picture of a system that had ceased to perform its most basic functions.10
A functional school system is meant to act as a buffer, a place of stability and opportunity that mitigates the challenges students face outside its walls. In Pocahontas County, the school system became an additional source of chaos and failure. The inability to create student schedules, properly transcribe grades, provide counseling, or comply with special education law meant that the district was not only failing to buffer students from external pressures but was actively contributing to their academic decline.
This confluence of factors created a destructive negative feedback loop. The administrative failure led to poor academic outcomes, as quantified in Section II. Poor school performance erodes community trust and can accelerate the out-migration of families with the means to leave, further shrinking enrollment and concentrating disadvantage.30
This, in turn, puts additional strain on the already overburdened and under-capacitated school and community systems, like the public library. The result is a cycle of decay where the school's failure deepens the community's problems, and the community's problems make the school's recovery ever more difficult. The crisis in Pocahontas County is therefore a total system failure, requiring a total system response.
Section VI: A Blueprint for Recovery: Multi-Tiered Strategic Recommendations
The diagnosis of the crisis in Pocahontas County Schools is severe, but it is not terminal. A path to recovery is possible, but it requires immediate, decisive, and coordinated action across all levels of the education system—from the statehouse to the classroom—as well as engagement from community partners. The following recommendations are designed to address the root causes of failure identified in this report, moving beyond superficial fixes to rebuild the district's foundational capacity and restore a functioning educational environment for its students.
6.1 For the WV Department of Education: Recommendations for State-Level Intervention and Support
The State of Emergency declaration is the first step. It must be followed by sustained, hands-on intervention to stabilize the district and build a foundation for lasting improvement.
Recommendation 1: Intensive, Hands-On Oversight and Capacity Building. The WVDE should immediately deploy a dedicated, multi-disciplinary recovery team to Pocahontas County. This team's mandate should not be merely to monitor, but to directly oversee and, where necessary, execute the core administrative functions identified as deficient in the Special Circumstance Review. This includes rebuilding the processes for student scheduling, grade transcription in WVEIS, and the development and implementation of Personal Education Plans (PEPs).10 The goal is to restore basic operational integrity while simultaneously training local staff to take over these functions competently.
Recommendation 2: Targeted Human Capital Support. The WVDE should take an active role in helping the district recruit and retain critical certified personnel, particularly a school counselor for the high school and qualified special education staff.10 This could involve creating or leveraging state-level financial incentives, such as loan forgiveness or salary supplements, for service in high-need, remote rural districts like Pocahontas. The state should also provide direct support for a robust mentorship program for new administrators, addressing the leadership vacuum identified in the review.11
Recommendation 3: Facilitate a Community Ecosystem Recovery Task Force. Recognizing that the school's failure is intertwined with community-wide challenges, the WVDE should convene and lead a cross-agency task force. This task force must include representatives from the West Virginia Development Office, the West Virginia Broadband Office, and the West Virginia Library Commission. Its mission should be to develop a holistic, integrated recovery plan for Pocahontas County that explicitly addresses the digital divide and the public library funding crisis as essential components of educational recovery.6
6.2 For the Pocahontas County Board of Education: Recommendations for Governance and Systemic Reform
The local Board of Education must pivot from overseeing a failing system to actively leading a transparent and accountable recovery effort.
Recommendation 1: Fiduciary and Governance Overhaul. The Board must address the paradox of high per-pupil spending and catastrophic outcomes.1 It should immediately commission an independent, third-party performance and financial audit to determine how funds are being allocated and whether they are aligned with student needs. The budget must be fundamentally realigned to prioritize direct, student-facing services, including instructional support, counseling, and evidence-based interventions, over non-essential administrative overhead.
Recommendation 2: Rebuild Administrative Capacity and Accountability. The Board must make the hiring and professional development of staff with core administrative competencies its highest priority. All school leaders and relevant office staff must be required to complete comprehensive training and demonstrate proficiency in WVEIS, scheduling, and data management systems.10 Performance evaluations for administrators must be directly tied to their success in executing these fundamental responsibilities.
Recommendation 3: Implement a Transparent Recovery Dashboard. To rebuild public trust, the Board should create and maintain a public-facing online dashboard. This dashboard will track, in real-time, the district's progress on correcting every specific non-compliance issue identified in the WVDE's Special Circumstance Review. Each item should be listed with a clear action plan, a timeline for completion, and the current status.
6.3 For School-Level Leadership and Educators: Recommendations for Instructional and Programmatic Renewal
With administrative functions stabilized, school-level efforts can refocus on the core mission of teaching and learning.
Recommendation 1: Implement Universal, High-Dosage Tutoring in Foundational Literacy. The district must go "back to basics." A non-negotiable priority should be the implementation of a universal, high-dosage tutoring program for all students in grades K-8 who are scoring below proficient in reading. This program should be delivered in small groups during the school day and be grounded in the evidence-based principles of the Science of Reading, leveraging the framework and resources of the state's "Ready, Read, Write" initiative.28
Recommendation 2: Formally Rebuild and Fund the Public Library Partnership. School leadership at Marlinton and Hillsboro Elementary Schools must work with the district to formally rebuild the partnership with the Pocahontas County Libraries. This cannot be a relationship dependent on precarious grant funding. The school district should allocate operational funds to the library system via a formal memorandum of understanding to ensure the stable, consistent provision of library services and staffing for its elementary students.9
Recommendation 3: Launch a Targeted Campaign to Combat Chronic Absenteeism. In partnership with community organizations, schools should launch an aggressive, multi-faceted campaign to address chronic absenteeism. This should include positive reinforcement for good attendance, but also proactive outreach from school staff and Communities In Schools (CIS) coordinators to families of chronically absent students to identify and address root causes such as transportation, health, or housing instability.47
6.4 For Community Partners and Policymakers: Recommendations for Building a Resilient Literacy Ecosystem
The school district cannot recover in isolation. The surrounding community infrastructure must be strengthened to provide a supportive environment for students and families.
Recommendation 1: Achieve a Permanent Solution to the Library Funding Crisis. The Pocahontas County Commission and the region's state legislative delegation must work urgently to establish a stable, legal, and sufficient long-term funding stream for the Pocahontas County Libraries. Given the libraries' official role as a direct service provider to the school system, this is an educational issue as much as a community one. All options, including a dedicated excess levy or a change in state code governing Hotel/Motel tax, must be pursued.8
Recommendation 2: Prioritize Pocahontas County for Broadband Deployment. State and federal agencies overseeing broadband deployment, particularly the use of federal BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program funds, must designate Pocahontas County as a top-priority area. Closing the digital divide is a fundamental issue of educational equity, and providing reliable, affordable high-speed internet to the county's unserved and underserved households is a critical long-term investment in its future.6
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