Appalachian Transition Blog

School consolidation has become a significant issue in Appalachia, as in many rural areas. Just witness the storm of controversy over planned consolidation of elementary schools in Letcher County, Kentucky. Consolidation is used as a cost-cutting measure that closes smaller schools and moves students to larger, more centralized facilities. Consolidated schools may offer newer buildings, more extracurriculars and more modern technology, but they also often result in long bus rides for children and a loss of community. In this heartfelt piece from the Daily Yonder, a writer from West Virginia, laments the closing of her little school in Nicholas County.

The Heartbreak of a Closed School

Betty Dotson-Lewis This is all that's left of our Canvas school (left). It serves now as a meeting place for a Ruritan club.

Where did you go to school?  

Were you one of the lucky ones who lived in a rural school district with small schools, good teachers, good administrators and support personnel who treated you as if you were their own? Were you fortunate enough to go to school where you were a real student instead of just a number? 

I was. 

I attended Canvas Grade School in Canvas, Nicholas County, West Virginia in the Appalachian coalfields. Canvas Grade School was near the end of the Ward Road where we grew up on a farm surrounded by coalminers and farmers.  

Canvas Grade School was the focal point of the Canvas community. The school was a basic cinder block and mortar structure painted a sick yellow. The building held classrooms for grades K-8, a long hallway, and a lunch room. Enrollment varied between 100-120. 

The school was not much to brag about visibly, but it was what was inside that counted. 

Leadership East Kentucky is a year-long program intended to build leadership skills and learning around the critical issues facing eastern Kentucky. According to their website, the program "recruits a class from throughout East Kentucky and from diverse fields of interest, including business & industry, education, government, non profits, religion, arts & culture, grassroots organizations and others....

New projections from the federal Energy Information Agency show an even larger decline for Central Appalachian coal. By 2035, coal is expected to comprise just 39 percent of our nation's energy mix, and Central Appalachian coal production is estimated to decline 54 percent. This isn't shocking news to anyone who has been watching the trends for the past few years, and yet few of our elected leaders are talking about how to deal with it beyond inflammatory language that, as Ken Ward over at the Coal Tattoo puts it, "simply allows the region’s political leaders to cover up the fact that they don’t have a plan for dealing with the impact of the coming coal production collapse."

Our friends at Appalshop's Making Connections News followed How$mart team members on a recent home energy audit in eastern Kentucky.  Take a look at how it went, caught on film in this great video:

McDowell County, North Carolina is getting a first-of-its-kind animal processing facility that will help area producers get their poultry and rabbits to more consumers. The plant is USDA-certified, which means those who use it can sell their products across state lines and will be more appealing to larger grocery stores. Not only is the facility a non-profit, it plans be Animal Welfare Approved, meaning animals on-site will be handled humanely. Finding a USDA-certified processor that small-scale producers can access and afford is challenging; most are geared for much larger production. The McDowell news has the full story below.