On Wednesday, Nov. 13, several members of the Kump Education Center Board attended the local Chamber of Commerce Community Conversation on “Education: What is the road ahead?” There were more questions than answers — as one might expected with any conversation about education.

Our new Randolph County School Superintendent, Dr. Shawn Dilly started the conversation with the philosophical question: “Will our students be ready to live in their future world?”

Dilly did not pretend to know what the future will bring or how schools should prepare students for that future. He had given much thought to the role of education in the lives of current students and how education must change because too many recent graduates are not employable now.

Most of all, Dr. Dilly seems to be concerned about the emotional and social skills students need to be able to cope with others and build meaningful relationships within their families and local communities.

He recognizes that things like literature, statistic, and technology are important, but ethical and critical thinking needs to be developed if artificial intelligence is going to operate within humane guidelines.

Dr. Chris Wood, president of Davis & Elkins College, emphasized the importance of developing ethical and critical thinking in a Liberal Arts College.

Of course, all students need to be able to use technology to gain knowledge in the Information Age, but decision makers must understand the lessons of history, literature, math, and science as well.

Nevertheless, Dr. Wood said that D&E does offer and will plan to add more two-year degrees to help local people live and work here. Although D&E is not a government-funded community college, it is flexible, and Dr. Wood believes the curriculum and tuition should be responsive to the needs of local people.

The third panelist, Sarah Wamsley, was a coordinator of Career and Technical Education for the West Virginia Department of Education. WVDE is developing vocational education opportunities for students throughout the state, and educators hope to attract industries that will benefit from the new skills of our workforce.

Vocational education is available at Randolph County Vo-Tech next to Elkins High School on Kennedy Drive in Elkins.

Several smaller organizations had display tables around the conference room to explain their educational programs.

For example, Kump Education Center offers tutoring for 4th and 5th grade students. If parents believe their child needs help with basic skills in reading and math, they may request that the teacher refer that student to our after-school Targeted Tutoring program.