By Kailee Kroll, WV News
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WV News) — As part of the West Virginia Board of Education May meeting, the West Virginia Department of Education Office of Early and Elementary Learning presented findings of a five-year longitudinal study focused on the quality of early learning in West Virginia.
In partnership with the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) and Marshall University, the study was designed to examine the effectiveness of West Virginia’s pre-k program and early learning grades, to understand the extent to which benefits result in education advantages and assess the quality of education experiences of children through third-grade.
From 2015-2020, the study included seven counties where lower pre-k participation rates were evident: Fayette, Greenbrier, Kanawha, Nicholas, Putnam, Roane and Wood counties.
The results showed that West Virginia remains a national leader providing high-quality pre-k programs, according to Dr. Monica DellaMea, WVDE director of Early and Elementary Learning…