Matewan High has been touted one of the best high schools in the United States this week, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Unfortunately, Matewan High is among five Mingo County schools cited by the WV Board of Education for deficiencies and poor performance, with the state taking over the county school system.
It has been ordered closed by the state, with extreme opposition by the Mingo Board of Education and Mingo County citizens.
The mandated closure of Mingo's high schools will cause long bus rides for many students to a new consolidated school that is estimated to cost $75 million.
The new school is to be part of an economic development project on a Mingo mountain, a considerable distance from existing highways and utilities.
The school is to be built on a strip mine site which is being donated, with opponents saying it is situated on a number of old mines, one of which they claim is still burning.
Principal Marcella Charles says "Little did I ever imagine that we would be part of that...I do think we have a great school, but small schools are usually not included in these studies.
The Mingo County high school serving Spriggs, Red Jacket, Newtown, Beech Creek, North Matewan, Blackberry and other areas has 203 students.
Matewan was one of 19 in West Virginia named as the top high schools in the United States.
"This is great news for Mingo County," Charles said. "If I could contribute it to anything, I would say we feel at Matewan that we have a community school. It's our staff, students, community, parents, and businesses. It's everyone."
U.S. News & World Report in collaboration with School Evaluation Services analyzed academic and enrollment data from more than 21,000 public high schools to find the best across the country.
These top schools were placed into gold, silver, bronze, or honorable mention categories.
The methodology for choosing the top 100 schools â all of which received gold medals â is based on the key principles that a great high school must serve all its students well, not just those who are bound for college and it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that the school is successfully educating its student body, researchers reported.
"The first step determined whether each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state," said the report.
Read about school consolidation problems by inserting MINGO in SEARCH
For a complete listing of schools and other data, visit www.usnews.com
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