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West Virginia BOE gives Superintendent Blatt perfect grade in one-year evaluation

State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt, second from right, explains the Department of Education’s new STRIVE program to members of the West Virginia Board of Education Wednesday. (Photo by Steven Allen Adams)

CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Board of Education gave State Superintendent Michele Blatt a glowing grade as she completes nearly one year as the state’s top education official.

The state Board of Education met for its monthly meeting Wednesday at the Department of Education offices in Charleston. The board moved to go into executive session to conduct their annual evaluation of the state superintendent of schools as well as other personnel matters.

Emerging from their executive session, state Board of Education President Paul Hardesty announced that the board had completed its evaluation of Blatt and found her to be outstanding in all evaluation areas.

“Superintendent Blatt has provided excellent leadership to public education and has the respect of stakeholders in public education,” Hardesty said. “Superintendent Blatt, on behalf of this board, we want to thank you for what you do for the children of West Virginia every day.”

The board appointed Blatt as the 34th state superintendent of schools on June 23, 2023, following the resignation of previous state superintendent David Roach that went into effect on June 30, 2023. Her salary was set at $230,000. As state superintendent, Blatt also serves as the lone non-elected member of the Board of Public Works alongside the governor, secretary of state, attorney general, state auditor, state treasurer, and agriculture commissioner.

Blatt, who previously served as deputy superintendent of schools in 2020, began working for the Department of Education in 2007 and has more than 25 years of education experience as a teacher and principal. She has worked her way up in the department, joining as a leadership development coordinator and serving as executive director of the Office of School Improvement, chief accountability officer and assistant superintendent for the Division of Support and Accountability.

“We could not be happier as a board collectively with what Michele’s done this year,” Hardesty said following Wednesday’s board meeting. “The morale here with the staff at the department. Everybody’s working together. She keeps the board informed. Kudos to Michele and her staff. We could not be happier with her performance.”

Blatt announced a new initiative of the Department of Education to address multiple issues facing county school systems, including issues with chronic absenteeism, school discipline, and low academic achievement. The new program is called STRIVE, and it is meant to bring together all the state’s resources into one centralized program.

“What we started to see is there’s a lot of things out there, but it’s not well known across our state, and our individual teachers in classrooms aren’t aware of these supports and things that are in place,” Blatt said.

STRIVE stands for Strengthened behavior response through Targeted assistance to promote Regular attendance, Increased achievement, Validated practices, and Empowered support teams. The program is divided into four quadrants, beginning with bringing together literacy and numeracy specialists, school safety officers, and behavior support specialists in regional meetings to learn what each group can offer another.

“If I have a literacy specialist in a school in Kanawha County and they see that there are discipline problems there, they know who that behavior support specialist is that serves Kanawha County, and they can help make that connection for that principal,” Blatt said.

Blatt said the department hopes to have four pilot programs in middle schools this fall, as well as offering grant programs to eight counties to support elementary school-level alternative programs to assess the new STRIVE program, collect data, and continue to make improvements.

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

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