As we celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week and National Teacher Day, it is a great time to reflect on the accomplishments of our staff and our students. Tyler County believes that all staff members, including aides, administrators, bus drivers, cooks, counselors, custodians, maintenance, secretaries, teachers, nurses, and school psychologists have to work together to make our schools and our students successful.

The work of our staff does not begin with the start of school and end with the closing of school. In the past year, our staff members have earned 6,097 hours of staff development training. The majority of these trainings occur during the summer months. This averages out to almost 30 hours per staff member.

Our students are successful in the classroom, in co-curricular activities, and in extra-curricular activities. Both the Volleyball Squad and the Knights Cheerleaders earned second place finishes at State Competition this year. Our Land Judging Team has earned two national championships in the past four years. Mr. Ammons’ students brought in $99,496.87 at their Market Sale. A total of 40 TSA students competed at the state level. Now 17 of those students qualified to compete at the National Conference at the end of June in Washington, D.C. The TCHS team was named the Most Outstanding Chapter for the third year in a row.

We had 10 Social Studies Projects named as winners at the regional level. Mr. Semple’s art students earned four of the top five places in the State Youth Art Poster Contest. Mr. Semple was also selected to head up the WV Youth Art Exhibit in 2015. Several middle school students received awards at both the Parkersburg Art Center and at the State Youth Art Show. The Seventh Grade Group Project was awarded the Sargants Award at the state level.

Our Music Departments at our elementary schools and TCMS and TCHS continue their tradition of earning high ratings at the various music festivals in which they have participated. The Afterschool Choir and Percussion Ensemble of Boreman Elementary were invited to perform at Arts Alive in Charleston.

We have four students who will travel to Charleston to be recognized as winners in the Young Writers Competition. We had several students at the elementary level receive awards from the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Agriculture Poster Contest, and the Par Mar Drawing Contest as well as those mentioned above for Math Field Day and Social Studies Fair.

We also had individual students receive recognition. Jessica Kimble, a sophomore at TCHS, placed in the top 10 of her division at the WV Poetry Out Loud Contest. Caroline Bantug received the Science in Art Award at the State Youth Art Competition. Dylan Reynolds, a senior at TCHS, was named as one of the top 15 students at the State Math Field Day and will travel to Penn State University to compete at the American Regional competition. Julian Work, a student at TCHS, was elected by the state Youth in Government body to serve as the 2014-15 WV State Clerk of the Senate.

Tyler County also has continued our long standing history of scoring at or near the top in various state assessments. On the WESTEST 2, our students scored in the top 10 in all four subtest areas. In 2013, the last year that AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) was used nationally to rate school systems, Tyler County was the only county of the 55 counties in West Virginia that achieved AYP. On the eighth grade EXPLORE test, our students ranked sixth in Math, second in English, fourth in Science, second in Social Studies, and tied for third place overall. On the 10th grade PLAN test, our students tied at four th place in English, fourth place in Math, tied for first place in Reading, second place in Science, and tied for first for the overall score.

In Career Tech programs, we had 32 completers that took the Work Keys Exams. On these exams, our students received 31 Gold certificates, 34 Silver certificates, and one bronze.

We also have 38 students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses at TCHS. The Class of 2014 has had 25 students officially notified that they are recipients of the Promise Scholarship.

The accomplishments and the achievement of our students is a result of the commitment to excellence that is the priority of our staff, our Board of Education, our parents, and our community.