Two years ago, a snarl of legal challenges was making it appear more than likely that the West Virginia Academy, then planned as the Mountain State’s first-ever charter school, wasn’t going to be able to open its doors to students after all.
Today, the academy, which has a main building on Chestnut Ridge Road and is currently working on a branch campus in Masontown, Preston County, is in the running for a prestigious academic prize.
The academy, which is now in its second year, is semifinalist for The Yass Prize.
That’s a $1 million offering from the organization of the same name which annually awards dollars to schools and other learning endeavors across the country it deems as education innovators.
Counting the Morgantown school, 33 other such intellectual efforts, from Tempe, Ariz., to Detroit to Fargo, N.D., are all vying for the big prize this year.
The academy is also eligible for the $100,000 Parent’s Choice Award through The Yass Prize, and that nomination carries a net of live and virtual workshops designed to foster learning in students of all ages.
Visit https://yassprize.org/awardees/2023-semifinalist/ to learn more about the nominees and to find out how you can cast a vote.
John Treu, a founding member of the West Virginia Academy and its board chair, said the nomination alone validates what was the aim of the school in the first place.
“It’s a tremendous honor to be recognized after just one year of operation,” he said.
While $1 million would especially be nice, the board chair said, just being associated with The Yass Prize as a nominee makes for another kind of payout that may be even more valuable.
“The connections and training provided through this amazing program will help our school serve more families who feel traditional public education is not meeting their needs,” Treu said.
Meanwhile, if it wins, the academy already has the money spent, True said.
It would use the offering to expand its current space, while also growing enrollment to 12th grade.
Getting to now wasn’t easy for the academy, Treu said.
It meant going before both the Monongalia County Board of Education at the West Virginia Supreme Court – as questions over academic accountability and the diverting of public monies for private education entered the debate.
Treu said it’s now a matter of finding one’s footing in an ever-shifting education landscape in West Virginia, which is still in its pioneer phase regarding charter schools.
“The first year was a battle in so many ways, but in spite of all the challenges as a start-up, we had the strongest student outcomes in the state among charter schools,” he said.
The academy, he said, “met or exceeded” state averages in public schools across West Virginia also.
“We anticipate that our student outcomes will continue to improve as our amazing teachers have more time and experience in our system,” Treu said.
Treu’s school, meanwhile, isn’t the only enterprise from Morgantown to get the notice of The Yass Prize.
The Mountaineer Homeschool Hub, which is housed in the former Woodburn Elementary, was awarded $100,000 from The Yass Prize last year.
