our country is founded on the American
dream the belief that everybody
despite their background if you work
hard enough and you make the right
decisions that you can be successful we
know that dream is not alive and well
all across the West Virginia or all
across the nation we know that human
potential is spread much more evenly
than opportunity so today I want to talk
about histah the Health Sciences and
Technology Academy which is a program
that we have created here in West
Virginia to address just that rekindling
the American dream it is an after-school
program and it is for kids from
disadvantaged backgrounds that enriches
their science and math skills and it
goes from 9th through the 12th grade so
that a kid that comes successfully
through histah has a real chance of
success in college and going back into
their community to take that dream back
and rekindle it in the next generation
now let me tell you why I am so
passionate about histah back when I was
born I was born into a family with two
generations of my people going to
college before me I went to an
elementary school where I was a smart a
kid that’s me I know pretty skinny I was
the good kid the teacher pleaser
I had the American Dream firm in my
hands and then I hit a hole in the
seventh grade what they did was they
consolidated all the elementary schools
around the county into one great big
Jack Jewett Junior High School where I
went from being the smart kid whose
mother was president of the PTA in
elementary school to a number and when I
went to that school
somebody misread my attitude scores and
they put me in through Section D
Section D was not going to college and
they told us that they told me you’re
not smart enough to go to college this
is the first time I had ever heard those
words you don’t have the potential to
make it successfully through college you
need to think about a career as a
seamstress or a gas station attendant
and while those are fine careers that
was not my dream I was dashed so inside
of six weeks just six weeks I went from
being that a student to getting my first
D ever on a pop quiz and I went from
being that kid that was the teacher
pleaser to being the kid that was
standing in the corner on a timeout I’ll
never forget that D I went home from
school that day and I said to my mother
mother mommy my teacher says I can’t go
to college my mom says the hell with
this and she marches right in there and
she says something’s wrong and that’s
when they discovered that what was ninth
grade fifth month potential had been put
in fifth grade ninth month glasses so
they whipped me out of Section D and put
me into Section H fast track to college
you would think that would do it right I
would be out of that whole no because
all of my friends were in Section D I
didn’t know a soul in Section H and not
only that section H was rushing ahead
college bound on homework that session D
was never going to see and I had six
weeks of homework and no friends to help
me so it took me more than six weeks to
dig out of this it took me a full year I
got real DS and I got C’s and along the
way it was ugly
but I had this one test it was a grammar
test and I knew I had I had aced it I
was confident and when the teacher came
around she was handing out these papers
individually saying you got this you got
this they did that back then and they
she got to me and she said and you got a
hundred did you cheat
I was devastated but obviously I got out
of that hole because I’m standing here
today but I didn’t get out of it by
myself my parents my family they dragged
me out and they supported me the whole
way and the American Dream was rekindled
in me
but that’s where my passion comes from
and I have joined with people across
this state to create a histogram to go
back and rekindle the American dream for
kids in our section DS so that they too
can be successful here’s what it looks
like in 1996 we started it in 1994 and
this is the first class in 1996 out of
Braxton in Webster County on West
Virginia University campus for the first
time these kids had never left home ever
and here they are crystal is a family
doc Laura is a chemist Natalie’s a
veterinarian Amy’s a surgeon Jennifer
and Jennie are teachers Barron is an EMT
in his own hometown every one of them
works and lives in Appalachia over the
course of this program which we have
honed as a large group of people we have
graduated 2556 kids from histah 99% have
gone to college these are kids from
African American and other other
underrepresented families these are kids
from financially disadvantaged families
these are kids whose parents never went
to college
99% going to college that’s relative to
the national figure of 70 that’s
relative to the West Virginia figure of
56% we’re kind of proud but that’s not
it
look at this this is the graduation rate
from college with a four-year degree 87%
of histah kids graduate with a four-year
degree or higher if you add the two-year
degrees it goes to 90 percent compared
to the national figure which is less
than 60 and the West Virginia average
which is less than 50 and the West
Virginia low-income which these kids are
mostly these kids are rocking it
independent of skin color or race or
religion it’s amazing
this is how it works this large group of
people called the histah family have
joined together and created an
environment add to that the teachers
doing after-school programming add to
that the colleges and universities
across this state and put with that the
funders the West Virginia legislature
has funded his stuff for over two
decades the National Institutes of
Health National Institute of General
Medical Sciences has this fabulous
program granting program called the
Science Education Partnership award that
award has been ours for over two decades
as well
Seba promises us another four years
that’s our histah infrastructure inside
of that the staff supports the kids and
the kids come in to histah starting in
the ninth grade the summer before go on
to a big college campus and a hundred at
a time join forces and they have fun
doing science they also meet people that
are like them that have the same goals
they also meet people that are different
from them that want them to succeed and
then when they come out of that
experience which is guaranteed success
they go into their communities into
after-school clubs one teacher ten kids
each kid does a research project on
something that is relevant to them and
is connected to their community they do
that every single year and at the end of
the year they have to stand up in front
of judges peers and teachers and talk
about what they’ve done and if they go
to at least two summer camps and if they
attend at least 70% of their clubs and
they also do a science project every
single year and present it in front of
their judges and 75 hours of community
service and they are not behavior
problems and a-three oh that’s all I
promise those are the qualifications for
success and listen to this if they
succeed they get a tuition waiver to any
West Virginia state supported college or
university all the way through
undergraduate that’s what our state does
for these kids
it doesn’t stop there it takes them
through medical school dental school
pharmacy school nursing they can get a
PhD in biology chemistry math physics at
any of our state supported colleges in
the university that’s a big reward fist
is based on the philosophy of seven ARS
these seminars are really important the
first one being reward
this is Emmy Chapman Emmy was born and
raised on the top of jota mountain which
is in the center of the state Webster
County there is not a stoplight in the
entire county when she was in elementary
school her teacher told her she wasn’t
as smart as the other kids she took that
as a challenge and she when she went to
high school she connected with the
histogram to get to high school she had
to travel at one hour one way this is
the same high school that her parents
had ended their formal education MA
ended up connecting with a history
teacher
Kathy Morton and Kathy Morton made sure
that when Emmy entered histah that she
had fun recreation is the second piece
of this if it isn’t fun the kids are not
going to stick the other thing that
Kathy made sure of is that Emmy built
relationships relationships with people
like herself relationships with people
that were different from her but wanted
her to succeed with those 3 R’s reward
recreation and relationship histor kids
you can’t stop them so that’s why we put
on top of it something hard research
researchers chosen is our curriculum
because research teaches college
readiness
it teaches problem-based learning it
teaches synthesis and communication and
arithmetic and linear thinking and when
the research is relevant it teaches that
these students have the ability to
affect change in their community it also
gives them an
infrastructure the relevance does on
which to hang their learning so that
they can remember it better add to that
we don’t make it easy
history is hard right up front there’s a
lot of hand-holding for freshmen every
bump they meet they’re met with lots of
support so at the end of the day when
they’re seniors they’ve got this and
they’re reaching back for the freshmen
to help them like they were helped and
we do it for years repetition repetition
repetition because remember just six
weeks of repression took me down for
over a year imagine a lot of you don’t
have to imagine what a lifetime of
doctor Emmie Chapman Jackson MD surgeon
she didn’t have as much potential as the
not so here are the histor kids on West
Virginia State University campus what we
didn’t see coming and what I am so proud
of is that this hit these histah kids
are giving back to their community right
now they are doing research on things
like water quality air quality they are
making differences in bullying this is a
hissed imam number zero to eight three
who had a history who had a movement
project trying to get West Virginians to
move more and it worked
she’s running her first ever half
marathon these are some students right
out of Boone County these students know
they have a prescription drug problem so
they decided to put together a drug
drop-off day as part of their project
they put on the side of the road a box
that you couldn’t see into that people
could drive by and just drop their drugs
that they didn’t need into and inside of
four hours they picked up 25 pounds of
pills that’s one pill for babies moms
grandmothers grandfathers everybody in
that county and that’s just in four
hours we’ve got a problem in this state
these kids are trying to do something
about it and after they graduate from
histah here’s where they go 87% of them
are working and living in West Virginia
right now the darkest dots are a hundred
and forty-three kids and if you look at
the darkest counties in West Virginia
they are not shying away from living and
working in those counties the counties
that need them the most they earn on
average thirty thousand dollars more
than their highest earning parent
imagine and they’re infusing that into
the economy here’s what they look like
that’s Natalie Fraley he’s the
veterinarian owns her own animal clinic
Bridgeport Andrew McDavid owns his own
real estate business and has set up a
program to help students aren’t help
students help families in Kanawha County
who don’t have a lot of money get their
first house
here’s Stephanie Tyree she went out of
state to get her JD came back as a
lawyer and now she’s executive director
of the West Virginia development hub
here’s summer Coon she’s a leader in
history ow
she helps over 200 histah kids a year
connect with scientists to do the
research to help solve West Virginia’s
problems here’s Chris Chris Adkins he is
an assistant professor in the School of
Dentistry he Dental ism is one of our
biggest problems in this state
and here’s Lindsay Macintosh another
lawyer she is helping West Virginia
Department of Health and Human Services
work on improving social justice in the
state and this is just the tip of the
iceberg histah is working and it’s
working deep and it’s ready for
replication it doesn’t cost too much
that waiver I was telling you about that
when they graduate from high school they
have good grades they qualify for
financial aid most of the history kids
do not need any of the waiver because
they come fully funded it doesn’t take
too much time two hours after school a
week one week of summer it doesn’t even
take new infrastructure all across our
nation we have what it takes
leaders and underserved communities
teachers colleges and universities and
funders like the National Institutes of
Health
SEPA award they are looking for places
in the unit in the United States where
we can fund programs like histah to
encourage kids out of section D to
become biomedical engineers and other
health practitioners so let’s do it
let’s take West Virginia model of histah
and make it happen
nationwide it’s worth it because you
know I found that it’s often the
students that you’re trying to inspire
that end up inspiring you the most thank
you you
dream the belief that everybody
despite their background if you work
hard enough and you make the right
decisions that you can be successful we
know that dream is not alive and well
all across the West Virginia or all
across the nation we know that human
potential is spread much more evenly
than opportunity so today I want to talk
about histah the Health Sciences and
Technology Academy which is a program
that we have created here in West
Virginia to address just that rekindling
the American dream it is an after-school
program and it is for kids from
disadvantaged backgrounds that enriches
their science and math skills and it
goes from 9th through the 12th grade so
that a kid that comes successfully
through histah has a real chance of
success in college and going back into
their community to take that dream back
and rekindle it in the next generation
now let me tell you why I am so
passionate about histah back when I was
born I was born into a family with two
generations of my people going to
college before me I went to an
elementary school where I was a smart a
kid that’s me I know pretty skinny I was
the good kid the teacher pleaser
I had the American Dream firm in my
hands and then I hit a hole in the
seventh grade what they did was they
consolidated all the elementary schools
around the county into one great big
Jack Jewett Junior High School where I
went from being the smart kid whose
mother was president of the PTA in
elementary school to a number and when I
went to that school
somebody misread my attitude scores and
they put me in through Section D
Section D was not going to college and
they told us that they told me you’re
not smart enough to go to college this
is the first time I had ever heard those
words you don’t have the potential to
make it successfully through college you
need to think about a career as a
seamstress or a gas station attendant
and while those are fine careers that
was not my dream I was dashed so inside
of six weeks just six weeks I went from
being that a student to getting my first
D ever on a pop quiz and I went from
being that kid that was the teacher
pleaser to being the kid that was
standing in the corner on a timeout I’ll
never forget that D I went home from
school that day and I said to my mother
mother mommy my teacher says I can’t go
to college my mom says the hell with
this and she marches right in there and
she says something’s wrong and that’s
when they discovered that what was ninth
grade fifth month potential had been put
in fifth grade ninth month glasses so
they whipped me out of Section D and put
me into Section H fast track to college
you would think that would do it right I
would be out of that whole no because
all of my friends were in Section D I
didn’t know a soul in Section H and not
only that section H was rushing ahead
college bound on homework that session D
was never going to see and I had six
weeks of homework and no friends to help
me so it took me more than six weeks to
dig out of this it took me a full year I
got real DS and I got C’s and along the
way it was ugly
but I had this one test it was a grammar
test and I knew I had I had aced it I
was confident and when the teacher came
around she was handing out these papers
individually saying you got this you got
this they did that back then and they
she got to me and she said and you got a
hundred did you cheat
I was devastated but obviously I got out
of that hole because I’m standing here
today but I didn’t get out of it by
myself my parents my family they dragged
me out and they supported me the whole
way and the American Dream was rekindled
in me
but that’s where my passion comes from
and I have joined with people across
this state to create a histogram to go
back and rekindle the American dream for
kids in our section DS so that they too
can be successful here’s what it looks
like in 1996 we started it in 1994 and
this is the first class in 1996 out of
Braxton in Webster County on West
Virginia University campus for the first
time these kids had never left home ever
and here they are crystal is a family
doc Laura is a chemist Natalie’s a
veterinarian Amy’s a surgeon Jennifer
and Jennie are teachers Barron is an EMT
in his own hometown every one of them
works and lives in Appalachia over the
course of this program which we have
honed as a large group of people we have
graduated 2556 kids from histah 99% have
gone to college these are kids from
African American and other other
underrepresented families these are kids
from financially disadvantaged families
these are kids whose parents never went
to college
99% going to college that’s relative to
the national figure of 70 that’s
relative to the West Virginia figure of
56% we’re kind of proud but that’s not
it
look at this this is the graduation rate
from college with a four-year degree 87%
of histah kids graduate with a four-year
degree or higher if you add the two-year
degrees it goes to 90 percent compared
to the national figure which is less
than 60 and the West Virginia average
which is less than 50 and the West
Virginia low-income which these kids are
mostly these kids are rocking it
independent of skin color or race or
religion it’s amazing
this is how it works this large group of
people called the histah family have
joined together and created an
environment add to that the teachers
doing after-school programming add to
that the colleges and universities
across this state and put with that the
funders the West Virginia legislature
has funded his stuff for over two
decades the National Institutes of
Health National Institute of General
Medical Sciences has this fabulous
program granting program called the
Science Education Partnership award that
award has been ours for over two decades
as well
Seba promises us another four years
that’s our histah infrastructure inside
of that the staff supports the kids and
the kids come in to histah starting in
the ninth grade the summer before go on
to a big college campus and a hundred at
a time join forces and they have fun
doing science they also meet people that
are like them that have the same goals
they also meet people that are different
from them that want them to succeed and
then when they come out of that
experience which is guaranteed success
they go into their communities into
after-school clubs one teacher ten kids
each kid does a research project on
something that is relevant to them and
is connected to their community they do
that every single year and at the end of
the year they have to stand up in front
of judges peers and teachers and talk
about what they’ve done and if they go
to at least two summer camps and if they
attend at least 70% of their clubs and
they also do a science project every
single year and present it in front of
their judges and 75 hours of community
service and they are not behavior
problems and a-three oh that’s all I
promise those are the qualifications for
success and listen to this if they
succeed they get a tuition waiver to any
West Virginia state supported college or
university all the way through
undergraduate that’s what our state does
for these kids
it doesn’t stop there it takes them
through medical school dental school
pharmacy school nursing they can get a
PhD in biology chemistry math physics at
any of our state supported colleges in
the university that’s a big reward fist
is based on the philosophy of seven ARS
these seminars are really important the
first one being reward
this is Emmy Chapman Emmy was born and
raised on the top of jota mountain which
is in the center of the state Webster
County there is not a stoplight in the
entire county when she was in elementary
school her teacher told her she wasn’t
as smart as the other kids she took that
as a challenge and she when she went to
high school she connected with the
histogram to get to high school she had
to travel at one hour one way this is
the same high school that her parents
had ended their formal education MA
ended up connecting with a history
teacher
Kathy Morton and Kathy Morton made sure
that when Emmy entered histah that she
had fun recreation is the second piece
of this if it isn’t fun the kids are not
going to stick the other thing that
Kathy made sure of is that Emmy built
relationships relationships with people
like herself relationships with people
that were different from her but wanted
her to succeed with those 3 R’s reward
recreation and relationship histor kids
you can’t stop them so that’s why we put
on top of it something hard research
researchers chosen is our curriculum
because research teaches college
readiness
it teaches problem-based learning it
teaches synthesis and communication and
arithmetic and linear thinking and when
the research is relevant it teaches that
these students have the ability to
affect change in their community it also
gives them an
infrastructure the relevance does on
which to hang their learning so that
they can remember it better add to that
we don’t make it easy
history is hard right up front there’s a
lot of hand-holding for freshmen every
bump they meet they’re met with lots of
support so at the end of the day when
they’re seniors they’ve got this and
they’re reaching back for the freshmen
to help them like they were helped and
we do it for years repetition repetition
repetition because remember just six
weeks of repression took me down for
over a year imagine a lot of you don’t
have to imagine what a lifetime of
doctor Emmie Chapman Jackson MD surgeon
she didn’t have as much potential as the
not so here are the histor kids on West
Virginia State University campus what we
didn’t see coming and what I am so proud
of is that this hit these histah kids
are giving back to their community right
now they are doing research on things
like water quality air quality they are
making differences in bullying this is a
hissed imam number zero to eight three
who had a history who had a movement
project trying to get West Virginians to
move more and it worked
she’s running her first ever half
marathon these are some students right
out of Boone County these students know
they have a prescription drug problem so
they decided to put together a drug
drop-off day as part of their project
they put on the side of the road a box
that you couldn’t see into that people
could drive by and just drop their drugs
that they didn’t need into and inside of
four hours they picked up 25 pounds of
pills that’s one pill for babies moms
grandmothers grandfathers everybody in
that county and that’s just in four
hours we’ve got a problem in this state
these kids are trying to do something
about it and after they graduate from
histah here’s where they go 87% of them
are working and living in West Virginia
right now the darkest dots are a hundred
and forty-three kids and if you look at
the darkest counties in West Virginia
they are not shying away from living and
working in those counties the counties
that need them the most they earn on
average thirty thousand dollars more
than their highest earning parent
imagine and they’re infusing that into
the economy here’s what they look like
that’s Natalie Fraley he’s the
veterinarian owns her own animal clinic
Bridgeport Andrew McDavid owns his own
real estate business and has set up a
program to help students aren’t help
students help families in Kanawha County
who don’t have a lot of money get their
first house
here’s Stephanie Tyree she went out of
state to get her JD came back as a
lawyer and now she’s executive director
of the West Virginia development hub
here’s summer Coon she’s a leader in
history ow
she helps over 200 histah kids a year
connect with scientists to do the
research to help solve West Virginia’s
problems here’s Chris Chris Adkins he is
an assistant professor in the School of
Dentistry he Dental ism is one of our
biggest problems in this state
and here’s Lindsay Macintosh another
lawyer she is helping West Virginia
Department of Health and Human Services
work on improving social justice in the
state and this is just the tip of the
iceberg histah is working and it’s
working deep and it’s ready for
replication it doesn’t cost too much
that waiver I was telling you about that
when they graduate from high school they
have good grades they qualify for
financial aid most of the history kids
do not need any of the waiver because
they come fully funded it doesn’t take
too much time two hours after school a
week one week of summer it doesn’t even
take new infrastructure all across our
nation we have what it takes
leaders and underserved communities
teachers colleges and universities and
funders like the National Institutes of
Health
SEPA award they are looking for places
in the unit in the United States where
we can fund programs like histah to
encourage kids out of section D to
become biomedical engineers and other
health practitioners so let’s do it
let’s take West Virginia model of histah
and make it happen
nationwide it’s worth it because you
know I found that it’s often the
students that you’re trying to inspire
that end up inspiring you the most thank
you you
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