October 2 – A tasty green salad with a blue ribbon?
If you have a connection to Pleasant Valley Elementary School, you can say yes to both.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona last week named the Marion County school a 2024 National Blue Ribbon School.
The school near Fairmont is one of 356 schools nationwide to receive the designation, Cardona said.
Including Pleasant Valley, only three from the Mountain State made the list this year.
“It is a testament to the exceptional performance and faculty at each of these schools,” the secretary said.
On the nomination page for the award, Pleasant Valley administrators praised the school and the mascot’s interweaving as a mission statement.
“Our schoolwide expectations of ‘Bee Ready, Bee Respectful, Bee Responsible’ guide our students every day,” these administrators noted.
“We understand that our relationships cultivate experiences that foster lifelong experiences and passion,” they continued.
“We believe something big happens every day, in every classroom, for every student.”
Those classrooms don’t necessarily have to be indoors, the school said.
Just ask Pleasant Valley faculty member Krista Blankenship, who was recently named West Virginia State Teacher of the Year nominee for 2025.
Blankenship, who teaches third grade, had a cafeteria salad bar of the future in mind when she secured funding last year to build a high agricultural tunnel at her school.
High tunnels are fixtures that allow longer growing seasons and higher crop yields, even during winter or other periods of extreme temperatures.
The teacher, whose 18-year career has included working in Monongalia and Hampshire counties, has long been praised for bringing the outdoors inside — to her classroom and her students.
She is also known for her ‘Trout in the Classroom’ project, which introduces aquatic ecosystems within the four walls of the school.
As mentioned, the teacher hopes that the products grown on campus via the high tunnel will eventually end up on the lunch menu of the canteen.
The other Blue Ribbon schools mentioned in West Virginia are Kellogg Elementary in Wayne County and Gilmore Elementary in Jackson County.
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