Winfield High School (West Virginia)
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Winfield High School is a high school located in Winfield, West Virginia. As of 2005, the principal is William Hughes. Winfield High underwent major expansion in 2006 to compensate for the overcrowdedness of the school and to update many of the facilities. The expansion is expected to be completed in 2007.
Winfield High School is located on the banks of the Kanawha River in Winfield, West Virginia. The community is a rural town, located halfway between Huntington and Charleston. Winfield High School is the newest of the four high schools in Putnam County.
In 2004 the school boys basketball team won the state championship competition.[1] The high school (girls) volleyball team won the AA state championship on November 11, 2006, defeating Lincoln High School.[2]
In a poor state, Winfield High School is significantly less poor. The school has fewer needy students than the state as a whole — 150 students, or 17.9 percent were deemed "needy" in a state report in 2006, while for the state as a whole the percentage was 49.9 percent.[3] The school's percentage of students eligible for free lunches is just slightly below the "needy" percentage, and the state's proportion of free-lunch students is similar to the "needy" population in the study.[4]
William H. Hughes is principal of the school, although the school district lost a court battle in January 2004, when the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that ruled the Putnam County school system should replace Hughes with Joyce Vessey Swanson, who had been another candidate for the job.[5]
The courts ruled that all objective criteria in the Board of Education hiring policy showed that Swanson and Hughes were roughly equally qualified in some areas, but that Swanson was more qualified in others. The superintendant of schools, who had dispensed with a hiring committee, had asked different questions of the candidates in their job interviews and had not kept adequate records of their responses. The school system's claim that, while both candidates were considered superbly qualified, for subjective reasons they had chosen Hughes (a former vice principal at the school) over Swanson (a principal at Buffalo High School) was, inadequately backed up by evidence.[5] As of the 2006-2007 school year, Swanson was principal of Hurricane High School in the district.
[edit] Awards and recognition for academics
In May 2006 the school was named one of 21 "Schools of Excellence" in the state by the state Department of Education.[6] In October 2006 the high school announced that the state Board of Education awarded it "Exemplary Accreditation status", which was achieved by only 74 schools (at any level) in the state.[2] The school has a tradition of winning academic awards. In 2001 it received the same "Exemplary" award as one of 50 schools in the state (in which there were a total of 817 at all levels). ("Exemplary" status is based on Stanford Achievement Test results, attendance, drop out rates, and writing exam scores.)[7] In 1996, the school was named one of 266 "Blue Ribbon" secondary schools across the country by U.S. Secretary of Education Robert W. Riley. Winfield High was one of only six high schools in the state to receive the award.[8] WHS was also a Blue Ribbon school in 1994 and 1995.[9] In 1983, Ava Florence Crum was one of two West Virginia secondary school teachers and one of 104 across the nation to win the first "Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching".[10]
[edit] Notable alumni
- Derek Keeling, Class of 1999, a competitor on the NBC television program "Grease: You're The One That I Want![11]
