2023-10-22 13:48:30
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The first public charter school in West Virginia is among the semifinalists for a national award on future education.
John Treu
The West Virginia Academy announced that they were selected for the 2023 Yass Prize, which recognizes organizations that have successfully made strides towards transforming education. As one of 30 semifinalists nationwide, West Virginia Academy Chairman John Treu was appreciative of the recognition of the two-year-old charter school.
“It’s a tremendous honor to have been selected as the Yass Prize semi-finalist,” Treu said. “It means a number of things including financial resources for the school in the form of a direct prize payment. It also means being brought into a network that’s really nationwide and worldwide.”
As a semifinalist, the West Virginia Academy earns a $200,000 award and an invitation to the Yass Prize Accelerator, in addition to the $100,000 award already earned for making it to the quarterfinal round. Treu said the funds will help them expand and enhance their existing offerings.
“In utilizing funds, it would really go towards growing our school,” Treu said on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town.” “There are some financial constraints that prevent you when you’re a school from being able to effectively grow and deploy your program, and so we would really utilize this towards growth in the form of teacher salaries while programs are developing and growing,” he said.
Jean Allen
The Yass Prize Accelerator is a series of virtual and live workshops designed to foster growth and innovation in education. According to Yass Foundation for Education Director Jeanne Allen, the program is an exercise with public and private sector leaders and the semifinalists to develop ways to expand opportunities in education and innovate in the classroom.
“It’s the opportunity to learn from one another and from experts in the field,” said Allen of the Yass Prize Accelerator Program. “They’ll go through a four-week accelerator, three weeks virtually, and one week in person. They’ll be exposed to experts in business, industry, education, policy, and law,” she said.
In addition to the competition, there’s an online voting competition for the Parent’s Choice Award that one of the thirty semi-finalists will win, which comes with a $100,000 prize.
If West Virginia Academy makes it to the final round of competition, that will mean $500,000 and an opportunity to earn the $1 million grand prize.
“West Virginia Academy demonstrated its demands and its innovative and personalized approach to helping its students succeed,” said Allen. “Those two things are hallmarks of what makes for what we believe makes a transformative education provider.”
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