Lincoln County High School Wins 2024 Pacesetter School Award
West Virginia school honored for fostering a culture of high expectations and effectively supporting collaborative teacher development
Nashville, TN – Lincoln County High School in Hamlin, West Virginia, is the winner of a 2024 Gene Bottoms Pacesetter School Award from the Southern Regional Education Board.
The school was honored July 9 at SREB’s Making Schools Work Conference in Nashville.
Pacesetter Awards recognize schools that are implementing one of SREB’s Making Schools Work school improvement frameworks and are achieving success in meeting bold goals related to graduation rates, readiness for college and careers, and credential attainment.
Lincoln County High School implements SREB’s school improvement design for high school. In a comprehensive review of curriculum and instruction starting in the 2020-21 school year, school administrators identified significant disparities in knowledge across classrooms.
In response to their findings, the school empowered teachers to reflect on and enhance their practices, prompting a reevaluation of teaching methods. The school also embraced a continuous improvement model, focusing on depth of knowledge across classrooms, evidence-based strategies and data-driven improvements.
Since embarking on this journey in the 2020-2021 school year, Lincoln County High School has seen proficiency in English Language Arts rise from 40% to 48%, in math from 10% to 18%, and in science from 18% to 29%.
SREB’s Making Schools Work Conference is held annually and provides educators with opportunities to participate in professional development, network with colleagues from across the country and build school and district leadership capacity.
Contact: Janita Poe, SREB News Manager, at Janita.Poe@sreb.org or 404-879-5516, ext. 216
The Southern Regional Education Board works with states, districts and schools to improve education at every level, from early childhood through doctoral education and the workforce. An interstate compact and a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Atlanta, SREB was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region.