Print |
E-mail to a friend
NEWS
West Virginia counties head back to school
Hayden ChaneyÕs family watches as he shakes hands with his first grad teacher Shaneka Cowan during a Back-to-School Celebration on Tuesday, August 25, 2009, at Spring Hill Elementary School. Students and their families could meet their teachers and classmates, dance and eat during the event.
Purchase this photoRelated:
HUNTINGTON -- The start of the 2009-2010 school year will be complete Wednesday as pretty much all of the West Virginia's public schools are in session.
Locally, that means Cabell, Wayne, Lincoln, Mason and Putnam counties, along with the kindergarten through eighth-grade private school Our Lady of Fatima. Most other Tri-State schools started last week.
To kick things off, two Cabell elementary schools held welcome-back events Tuesday night. Spring Hill Elementary Principal Pam Bailey said the second annual back-to-school celebration there serves to acclimate students with their new teachers and classrooms.
"It gets them comfortable (for the first day), so there's less anxiety," Bailey said.
Hite-Saunders also welcomed students and families for a meet-your-teacher night.
Teachers started back Aug. 21 to get their classrooms ready. But Cabell County Schools Communications Director Jedd Flowers said teachers have been busy all summer, participating in various technology trainings, not to mention the high school restructuring efforts set to roll out during the year at Cabell Midland and Huntington high schools and the Cabell County Career Technology Center.
The new year also marks the opening of a new school -- Milton Middle. Eighth-grade students will report Wednesday, with seventh-graders on Thursday and sixth-graders on Friday. All of the students will be back on Monday.
Barboursville Middle, which opened in January, is finished inside. But exterior work will not be completed until October. Assistant Superintendent of Operations Mike O'Dell said the parking lot and bus loop are behind schedule because of wet weather this summer.
In the meantime, parents and buses will arrive just the same as the end of last year.
"Buses will still come down the loop by the football field and still enter by administrative office," he said.
