Say hello to Foster.
And Coal and Jasper.
River, too.
If you don’t know them, you can make your acquaintance by visiting www.ciswv.org.
That’s the website for Communities in Schools West Virginia, which is a state offshoot of a national organization that supports at-risk public school students across the U.S.
West Virginia’s Department of Education linked up in 2017 at the urging of state First Lady Cathy Justice — who was on-hand and online Monday to announce a new initiative in the endeavor with her husband, Gov. Jim Justice.
The governor made brief remarks before heading off to his regular update of COVID-19 with reporters.
“From the very first day, I said we need to make education our centerpiece,” he said.
Cathy Justice then announced the launch of the Communities in Schools West Virginia website, which can be accessed via the above-mentioned URL.
The site, she said, gives numbers and capsules of what the organization is doing in a state that still has households with first-generation college students, while traditionally scoring near the bottom in national academic benchmark rankings.
To date, the program is part of 194 public schools in 36 counties, she said, with a goal of expanding to all 55 in the next three years.
A total of 84,000 school children in the state have benefited from the program over its past five years here, said Serena Nichols, who is part of the First Lady’s staff.
The site, Nichols said, has an interactive map, plus links to the organization’s Mountain State advisory council.
Student success stories are also chronicled on the site, she said.
There’s also a tail-wagging component, courtesy of Foster, Coal, Jasper and River.
The quartet of therapy dogs are the most recent addition to the Communities in Schools initiative, with canine biographies and photographs of them interacting with students.
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