Claire McFadden
Park is one of two schools in West Virginia designated as a Demo School.
Alongside Martinsburg High School, Wheeling Park was designated by West Virginia as a “Demo School,” which means that the state decided that Park had enough evidence of innovation and education within their school system to be showed off to the state. This means that Park gets a lot of support from the government to help set and maintain goals to become the best version of a high school Park can be.
Back in 2020 there was a whole group of schools in West Virginia that Park was working alongside with similar goals of innovation and education. Park is one of a few schools that stuck with those goals. Bringing these goals and ideas to life is how Park selected as one of only two demo schools.
With Park being a Demo School many new learning opportunities rise for everyone, even administrators.
“It allows us to receive extra training and have conversations we wouldn’t normally have,” said Mrs. Dailer, principal.
Many of Park’s policies stem from the training and ideas that were made available due to having this title. Some of these policies include, extension requests, the late work policy, habits of work, and many more.
With the designation of being a Demo School Park becomes a role model for other schools in the state. All of Parks amazing updates over the last few years like the ILC and the beautiful main entrance are shown off .
“We want to have a great educational system statewide, and for WPHS to model that is an amazing opportunity,” said Dr. Miller, Superintendent of Ohio County Schools.
Another aspect of being a Demo School is that Park is required to host visits. During these visits other schools, state legislatures, and state department employees can see what Park is up to. On October first Park hosted their first event where many teachers from other high schools and members of the Department of Education visited.
“We were able to show them a lot of different activities in the ILC and in our CTE classes,” said Dailer.
Being a Demo School is a great achievement for Park, the amount of learning opportunities that Park has to offer made our school an obvious choice for this title.
“Our staff and students go above and beyond to offer unique opportunities for kids, and to see that on a statewide stage is phenomenal,” said Miller.