George Washington Middle School Receives School of Excellence Distinction

George Washington Middle School has been named a 2008 West Virginia School of Excellence by the West Virginia Department of Education.

Like the mythical phoenix, the school in Eleanor has risen from the ashes to become one of the top schools in the state of West Virginia.

West Virginia Schools of Excellence are selected based on the following criteria: a rigorous and challenging curriculum, a safe and drug-free learning environment, participatory leadership, active teaching and learning, an environment that strengthens teacher skills, documented student achievement and the implementation of advanced and innovative programs.

Superintendent Chuck Hatfield said he is especially proud of GW’s staff and community for maintaining a focus on academic excellence and student support as they worked to rebuild their school after it burned eight years ago.

“Principal Joann Stewart, her staff, students, and community, along with Middle School Director Tom Tull, former GW principal, are to be congratulated on the hard work and dedication to student success that has resulted in this honor,” said Karen Nowviskie, Director of Elementary Education for Putnam County Schools.

Tull had just taken over as principal back in 2000 when three students broke into the school.

They set a blaze which nearly leveled George Washington Middle, striking a tragic blow against a school with a rich historical tradition.

Eleanor’s George Washington school building had been built in 1937, just two years after President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal created the town of Eleanor to provide jobs, training and better homes for workers in the Great Depression.

The town is one of 200 communities created by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s pet project, which began with the Arthurdale homestead community in Preston County east of Morgantown.

That year the First Lady herself came to Putnam County to dedicate the then-new school in the center circle of her namesake town.

In addition to destroying the books collected over half a century, the fire had consumed all the classrooms for the sixth grade, as well as rooms where art, computer science, home economics and technical classes were taught.

The kitchen and dining areas were gone.

In the fall of 2005, just after Stewart replaced Tull, who took a county administrative position, the rebuilding of the middle school’s physical facilities was completed.

It included new classrooms, kitchen, cafeteria, music, art, band, life skills and technical education rooms, along with a computer room, science lab and offices and a spacious, new library with a special area for video presentations.

“Rebuilding a facility was one challenge, but building a School of Excellence, in many ways, was a much greater challenge,” Hatfield noted. “It took the efforts of everyone – the teachers, students and parents, administration and the school board to achieve that.”

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