As coal fades in West Virginia, drugs fill void

Editor’s note: This is the last in a three-part series examining the impact of the coal industry on health, the environment and overall quality of life for the people of West Virginia. The first part looked at residents beginning to speak out in the aftermath of January’s chemical spill. Part 2 examined the environmental and employment effect of mountain top removal.

WAR, W.Va. — When Principal Florisha McGuire wants a clue about what’s going on in the homes of her students at Southside K–8 school, she often finds the answers on their feet.

“If you look at their little shoes, you can tell who has and who doesn’t,” McGuire said. “Their shoes give it away.”

But it’s their socks — more specifically, she said, if they have any — that often give away their parents’ neglect here in McDowell County, where at least one-third of residents are living below the poverty line and the money that many parents do have is spent on drugs.

McDowell’s children are the latest wave of victims as widespread addiction rips families apart — more misery for communities already suffering economic hardships from job losses in the coal industry.

In War, which inherited its name from an ancient Indian battle and is the southernmost in the state, McGuire and teachers at Southside tend to the most vulnerable casualties in the community’s ongoing tug-of-war with addiction. The battle is so pitched that the county has become the state’s poster child of what it looks like to be down and out. Out of West Virginia’s 55 counties, McDowell has the highest drug overdose death rate (PDF). It’s an infamous claim to fame that overshadows its other high rankings, for binge drinking and suicide.

McDowell residents are self-medicating, McGuire said.

But it wasn’t always that way. The county’s coal mines have been among the most productive in the state, which brought periods of boom that echoed throughout the hollows. Locals reminisce about how there were once three movie theaters in the county and the population swelled to more than 100,000. It was a dependence that would prove unsustainable. By the 1980s, a bust was well underway throughout the region’s coal hills. Mining mechanization eroded jobs, and the steel industry — coal’s main buyer — was in sharp decline.

The drug problems in McDowell are representative of those throughout West Virginia, which has earned the reputation of being the nation’s drug overdose capital. From 1999 to 2004, the state had a 550 percent increase in overdoses — the highest in the U.S., according to a study of unintended pharmaceutical overdose deaths in The Journal of the American Medical Association. It’s part and parcel of the medical community’s increased prescription of opioid pain medications that started in the late 1990s in a bid for a more compassionate pain management, according to the study. New prescription guidelines were issued in 1997 in the U.S., and in the decade that followed, per capita retail purchases of methadone were 13 times as high, oxycodone nine times as high and hydrocodone four times as high as before the guidelines changed.

Kathy Gentry remembers when the teachers and doctors started to leave McDowell County in the late 1970s. They left along with the blue- and white-collar workers.

“We were running out of coal for the big mines to take care of,” she said. “So as the mining left, so did the big jobs.”

Gentry heads an organization in Welch, the county seat, that provides low-income housing, and she said the main job opportunities are now found at the county correctional facility and the new federal prison.

“It’s a way of life now. We’re dealing with what we have now,” she said. “When you can live 35 miles away and have eateries and motels and hotels and entertainment, why are you coming to McDowell if you haven’t been a resident all your life?”

The imposing geography of coal hill swells and valleys is a barrier blocking the county from the world beyond. Towns such as War are left isolated along secondary roads, and a 13-mile trip to Welch to the county’s only movie theater takes about 45 minutes by car — for those who have a car.

The economic hardships in the community mean teachers commute from outlying areas. In a school district where about one-quarter of high school students are considered proficient in reading and only 3 out of every 4 students graduate from high school, it’s understandable that teachers would want to keep a toehold outside the county line.

“Teachers don’t choose to go to bad schools if they can help it, and yet it’s a bad school because people choose not to go there,” said Greg Cruey, a math teacher at Southside and the president of the county’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). “That’s a cycle that you have to find a way to break.”

It’s a cycle that also means about a 50 percent turnover in teachers from year to year. Every year is like starting over.

Three years ago, Southside received a $1.8 million federal grant to provide professional development for teachers. The turnover rate, however, shows that the program has been a horrendous failure, Cruey said. Only three teachers from the school’s 18 classes from prekindergarten through fifth grade remain from when the grant was received, he said.

It’s a problem much bigger than professional development.

“The kids who walk through our door, on average, are behind when they get here,” he said. “You have kids who show up for kindergarten, and they have never held, touched, seen a book. Nobody has ever read to them in their life.”

The county needs more housing, he said. And better roads. And more jobs. And a rehab center. And a stable food bank.

“I don’t know where you start,” Cruey said. “But I do know there’s no way we’re going to drain the swamp in 15 months.”

The teachers’ union is taking the lead on some of the most pressing community issues in order to bolster the county schools’ prospects. Two years ago, the AFT spearheaded the creation of Reconnecting McDowell, a public-private partnership of about 125 organizations, nonprofits and businesses attempting to improve the quality of life. The community program, for example, is tackling teacher turnover by addressing the lack of adequate housing in the area through the construction of a teacher village in downtown Welch. The vision is that at least 25 new apartments tucked behind the movie theater will plant the seeds for an environment that can attract and keep young teachers — at least for a few years.

“We can’t really turn around academic achievement of the children until we begin to address some of the underlying issues that they come to school with,” said Bob Brown, lead coordinator for Reconnecting McDowell.

In 2001 the state took over the county school system because of poor academic performance and financial irregularities. Since Reconnecting McDowell launched, however, academic performance has taken a turn for the better. Schools and 10,000 homes have been connected to high-speed Internet service, an after-school program began to help feed children dinner, and the schools are back in the hands of the county, Brown said.

Despite the piecemeal gains, the deeply rooted and homegrown hurdles remain.

“We have to eventually get past the cynicism of a community who says, ‘We’ve seen other programs come and go … and we don’t know why education is good for our kids, and we’re not really looking for life to improve,’” he said. “They have a right to be cynical. My response is to say, “That’s OK. We are going to try anyway.’”