West Virginia
Statewide Apprenticeship Program Helps Child Care Providers, But Issues Remain – West Virginia Public Broadcasting
West Virginia is facing a shortage of child care providers. But a program developed by the state, West Virginia University and other partners is training the industry’s workforce.
In the latest entry of “Now What? A Series on Parenting,” Chris Schulz talks with Kerri Carte, assistant director for WVU Extension’s Family and Community Development unit, about the Apprenticeship for Child Development Specialists (ACDS) and broader issues in the child care industry.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Schulz: Can you explain to me what adequate child care is? What is the standard that we’re working towards when you’re training these professionals?
Carte: The standard is to have educated, well-informed child care providers. They need to have a good, basic understanding of child development, of all the domains such as social-emotional development, motor development, cognitive development, all of those. But then they also have to have the tools of how to manage children appropriately, as well as how to manage themselves. It’s not like you’re caring for your own child personally. It’s a professional position, we’re not babysitters. They have to be able to conduct themselves professionally, and do what’s appropriate within a classroom.
The standards that we’re working towards are established by West Virginia. It’s the West Virginia core knowledge and competencies for early childhood. Those are set down by West Virginia’s DHHR, Department of Health and Human Resources. But they also come down from much higher. There’s national standards set by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. And then there’s even higher standards of Head Start and preschool that are all national standards, but our program specifically is working towards the West Virginia, core knowledge and competencies.
Schulz: Why is having a professional in the room with these children so important?
Carte: One of the big things that we teach our child care providers is how to look for milestones. Every child should develop in a certain pattern. Not every child reaches every milestone at the same time, but they should develop. For instance, you know a child will start rolling over first, and then they might start pushing up, and then they start to crawl, eventually leading to walking. And there are certain time frames when these things should occur. When they don’t occur in the right time frame, or if a child is not progressing, we call those red flags.
Child care providers are trained to notice those red flags. If they notice that a child is not pushing up, and they definitely have reached that limit of where they should be, they can alert the family and say, “You might want to go speak to your pediatrician and talk to him about this.” It allows us to catch any kind of developmental delays very early. That is critical in early childhood because anytime you can catch an issue really early, you have a much better chance of working with the child, working with the family and correcting those issues. But the other half of that is to know what’s appropriate to handle children: how they should be fed, how they should be put to sleep. What people do in their own homes is their own business, but in child care you put a child to sleep in a crib, there’s not allowed to be any kind of stuffed animals or any kind of suffocation factors in it. They learn all of those safety things, and how to appropriately handle a child so that they can develop appropriately.
Schulz: Where do we stand with child care and the level of professional availability for child care in West Virginia?
Carte: In my opinion, we’re in a crisis. We have child cares that are shutting down, the ones that are open have wait lists that are miles long. I’ll give you an example. Recently in Charleston, we had two well-established restaurants shut down very close together, tons of press on that. It was all over Facebook, I was scrolling. It was on the news and the newspapers. But at that same time, we had a child care center shut down that served 100 children. There was one newspaper article that I saw on that.
I think some of the people in the public think we’re crying wolf, but we’re really not. There are not enough child care providers in this state. And I’m in Charleston, there are more providers here in Charleston than in a lot of other places. We have counties that don’t have licensed child care providers. There’s not a provider in Wirt County. There are other counties that there are maybe one or two, and people don’t realize how impactful that is. People cannot be productive citizens, go to work, earn income, help our whole economy, if you don’t have somewhere safe and good to put your child. You don’t have anywhere to send your child because there’s nobody there. One-hundred families were impacted by that closure, and that’s critical to those people’s livelihoods. I don’t think the public is aware of how critical this is to our growth.
Schulz: What are the barriers to adequate care?
Carte: There is a ton of overhead in early childhood, that is where the challenge is. You go to elementary schools, you can have one person for 20 plus children. When you’re caring for infants, the ratio is much smaller. One person can only care for a handful of children in order for it to be safe and productive. We want that. We don’t want one person caring for 20 infants, they would never see to their needs. But you start adding all of those various staff in, and it becomes extremely expensive. That is the biggest challenge that child care providers are facing.
Some of them are just making minimum wage or just above. You can go to fast food restaurants or some of the big box stores and get paid more, because those people are in a retail business and their goal is to make money. But a lot of our child care providers, a lot of them are nonprofit. There are some that are for-profit, but it is so expensive to hire all the employees. Yet they can’t pay them very much because their sole income is the tuition that the families pay for that child. It is so expensive already for families that families can’t afford to pay any more. So owners of child care centers are always walking this fine line between not raising tuition too much where their families can’t afford it and yet being able to charge enough that they can pay their staff a living wage. And there’s a gap between those two that will probably never be reached.
The other flip side of that is we look at our public education, that’s all subsidized by taxes, county levies, federal funding, state funding, all of that is what is backed, it’s all supported. There is very, very little support going to early childhood. Some of our most neediest families, yes, can get some child care assistance through the resource and referral networks. But it’s peanuts in comparison to what we spend in public education. We need to have the same level of quality coming from that early childhood that we do in our public education system. But yet our society is saying, “Well, you do it on your own, we’re not going to fund it and support it.” And it’s impossible. It will never work.
I hate to keep saying that, because it sounds like all early childhood wants is their handout and money, but if they want quality child care, we’ve got to invest in that. There used to be some employers that would do employee-based child care. At least they had the support of an employer that was backing some of that. There are a few employers like WVU [who] provide some assistance for their employees with child care, trying to help a little bit with some subsidies, like a benefit, if you will, and they’ll help trying to contribute to some of that, but it’s few and far between. Most families are out there on their own, barely scraping by to make it work. And then they’re trying to come up with hundreds of dollars a month to pay tuition. And on the flip side, you have the child care centers that are doing the same thing. They’re trying to make their budgets match without breaking the bank of their families, and the gap is too wide. They cannot bridge it.
Schulz: The Apprenticeship for Child Development Specialists program – how is that addressing these issues that we’ve been discussing?
Carte: The apprenticeship program is just like plumbers, pipe fitters, all of that. We provide classroom education, they do on the job training. Once they go through the apprenticeship program, they become journeymen, all through the U.S. Department of Labor. So it’s just like all the other skilled laborers, if you will, that go through the process. What part that I play in that program is, well, a couple parts. I do a lot of their curriculum development, but I also do manage the program in Kanawha County, and I teach for them as well.
West Virginia is the only state that has an apprenticeship program for child development specialists. There are other states that have looked into it, but nobody’s able to implement it. That is one of the great things that our state has done. DHHR has backed the apprenticeship program. They provide funding for it, which is a great thing. Our goal is to try to educate these child care providers so that they can provide the best absolute quality of early childhood education that we can, that they can. It’s a four-semester program. Once they get done, they graduate, they become journeymen. And then they are more knowledgeable, they’re better trained, and a lot of our students will go on and seek higher education with the credits they earn. We have reciprocity with several colleges and universities across the state, they can turn it into nine or 12 credit hours of college because we cover so many core concepts.
Schulz: They must already be employed, or do you all help them find a position so that they can work on this simultaneously?
Carte: They must be employed, because it is an apprenticeship program. It is technically an employer-sponsored program. So just like plumbers or pipefitters, you must get a job first and then they will train you as you go and do an apprenticeship program. What’s different between the child care program and the other apprenticeship programs is that there’s apprenticeship programs for, like I said, plumbers, pipefitters, carpenters, all of that, [which] have been established for years and years and years. It’s built into that industry, that they provide support, finances to back and pay the education and pay to get through. That comes through employers. The child care program is not set up like that. It is backed and paid for by DHHR. So although it is employer sponsored, the employer doesn’t have to pay money for it. But they do have to be employed because it is through the employer that they get the apprenticeship program, because they have to do the on-the-job training.
And in order to do that for child care providers, that’s back in their classroom. Let’s say we’re talking about literacy and that’s what we’re teaching that week. Their homework is to do a literacy activity in their classroom with their children, with the skills and the things that we have talked about in that class. That’s how they practice the skills that they’ve learned in that class. They put it right back into their classroom, do the activity. Then the next week, say we talk about motor development or fine development, they have to go back into the classroom the following week, and they do that activity with the children. That’s why they have to be employed, they have to be able to practice and get that on-the-job experience and training, but then also it is through the U.S. Department of Labor, and they require it to be employer based, so you must already be employed. Now, if you lose your job mid-semester, for whatever reasons, like, say your child care center closes, we work with that student. They are allowed to finish out that semester. It’s not an automatic drop out. They are allowed to complete that semester, but then they must be employed in another child care setting before they can begin the next semester of the curriculum.
Schulz: So what do you think is the benefit of having this be a statewide program?
Carte: It comes into play when we talk about ethics. Communities are small, you might know a lot about this family or not as much and you know a lot about family ties. So we talk about that. We’re able to target it to those more rural environments. They may not have access to libraries or museums or external things. We adapted to make it appropriate for rural environments, for those areas that need it. The curriculum is very flexible, and we’re able to take advantage of some of those things if, you know, if the community can provide it. And if not, then we look at other options for communities, then we present both options to the child care providers.
Schulz: Is there anything that you would like to highlight or anything that I haven’t given you the opportunity to discuss with me today?
Carte: I guess I want to briefly tell you my own story [so] that you understand where my passion comes from. My children are grown, but 22 years ago, I was working with WVU. I was considered a professional, I had a faculty appointment. But I was a single parent and I struggled to find child care that I could afford, that I knew was quality at the time. I paid my mortgage and my child care providers in that order, and then everybody else got in line and took a number. That’s when I realized that we’ve got an issue. That was 20 to 24 years ago and the needle hasn’t moved much, families are still in that position. We’ve got to do something about that. Like I said, I had a very living salary, a very workable salary. A lot of our families don’t have that, and they’re struggling. And I do think we need to work on that as a state.
The other thing I want to talk about real briefly is that the curriculum that we provide is not one and done. I think one of the things that makes this program wonderful is that we are constantly going back to that curriculum and updating it, making corrections, fine tuning it, and adding new information that’s needed. Right now, the Extension Services [are] working to update the whole entire fourth semester with a lot more about behavior plans and behaviors, because that’s becoming a big issue in early childhood. We’ve got some children that are exhibiting behaviors that are really challenging due to trauma and all kinds of issues. So we are constantly revisiting this curriculum to update it and improve it.
The final thing I would like to say is that WVU doesn’t “own” this program. The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) does it through funding, and it runs through River Valley Child Development Services. So WVU is partnering with the River Valley organization that runs ACDS to help them with curriculum and instruction. So although we are a big factor as far as the curriculum and the education, the ACDS program is run by River Valley. That is an independent organization from WVU. It’s a great partnership. It really has helped, because River Valley does not have the expertise and the technicality within their staff to do all of this curriculum development. And of course as WVU employees we do, so it’s been a wonderful partnership.
West Virginia
How midsummer wild berries connect people, wildlife, and West Virginia’s forests – West Virginia Explorer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In midsummer, West Virginia’s forests yield one of their richest annual harvests. Blackberries spill over abandoned fence rows. Raspberries brighten sunny hillsides. Blueberries and huckleberries ripen on the state’s highest mountains.
For generations, families have carried buckets into the woods to gather berries for cobblers, jams, and pies. Yet these fruits nourish far more than Appalachian traditions. Each summer, millions of berries feed an extraordinary variety of wildlife, helping sustain everything from songbirds and wild turkeys to white-tailed deer and black bears.
Wildlife experts say the annual berry crop is one of the Appalachian forest’s most important natural food sources, influencing where animals travel, how they raise their young, and even how often people encounter bears.
Nature’s midsummer pantry
By July, West Virginia’s forests enter one of their most productive seasons. Forester William N. Grafton, a longtime specialist with the West Virginia University Extension Service, wrote in the West Virginia Encyclopedia that the Mountain State is home to “dozens of native berry plants, ranging from trees and shrubs to vines and herbs.”
Among the berries most prized by both people and wildlife, he wrote, are blackberries, blueberries, huckleberries, strawberries, serviceberries, and raspberries.
“July and August are the best months for juicy, tart blackberries,” Grafton wrote. “These months are also best for raspberries (black, red, and wineberry).”
Blueberries and glossy huckleberries continue to ripen from July through September, especially along forest margins, open woodlands, and high mountain ridges.
According to Grafton, these delicious fruits—known to wildlife biologists as “soft mast”—provide critical nutrition for numerous species during summer. Black bears, deer, raccoons, foxes, squirrels, chipmunks, wild turkeys, grouse, and countless songbirds depend on seasonal berry crops as they build energy reserves for the months ahead.
Berry patches also provide much more than food. Dense blackberry thickets offer nesting cover, escape habitat, and shelter for birds and small mammals, making them among the most valuable habitats along forest edges, old fields, and woodland openings.
Why berry season changes bear behavior
The arrival of berry season can also help explain a pattern many West Virginians notice each year. Black bears often become highly visible in late spring, wandering through neighborhoods in search of easy meals before natural foods become abundant. By July, however, reports of bears visiting residential areas frequently decline.
“The decrease in cumulative conflicts in the month of July coincides with the ripening of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries,” according to Colin Carpenter, black bear project leader with the W.Va. Division of Natural Resources.
As these natural foods become plentiful, bears spend more time feeding deep in forests and less time searching neighborhoods for garbage, bird feeders, livestock feed, or pet food.
“Bear movements are tied to food sources,” Carpenter says. “Bears that roam around residential areas in search of food are less likely to stay if they do not find anything to eat.”
While bears remain opportunistic feeders throughout the summer, abundant wild crops help keep many of them focused on natural forage rather than human-provided food sources.
Read more: Why more West Virginians are seeing black bears this summer
A tradition rooted in Appalachia
Long before grocery stores, midsummer berry season was among Appalachia’s most anticipated harvests.
Native peoples gathered wild berries for food and medicine, and later settlers preserved them as jams and jellies, baked them into pies, and canned them for winter. For many families, berry picking became both a necessity and a cherished summertime tradition.
For Matt Welsch, a West Virginia food historian, chef, and advocate for Appalachian foodways, berry picking remains one of the state’s most enduring seasonal rituals.
“I grew up picking berries on the farm,” Welsch says. “It was a family activity, a communion, and it always ended in a treat, whether that was something simple like fresh berries over cornbread with sugar and milk or a fresh fruit pie.”
Although the fruits now fill supermarket shelves year-round, he says gathering them in the woods offers something modern conveniences cannot replace.
“They say splitting your own wood warms you twice,” Welsch says. “Gathering forest berries is a treat twice over. Berries are in every grocery store these days, but nothing compares to those fresh from the woods. Picking berries is a touchstone for who we really are.”
That tradition remains especially strong in West Virginia’s high country. Grafton noted that “hundreds of people make annual forays to Dolly Sods, Spruce Knob, and nearby areas to pick blueberries,” a seasonal pilgrimage that continues today as hikers combine mountain adventures with one of the state’s most celebrated natural harvests.
Elsewhere, blackberry patches flourish along abandoned farmsteads, old logging roads, utility corridors, reclaimed meadows, and sunny woodland edges, offering some of the easiest and most rewarding wild foods to gather.
Welsch says those outings often became treasured family memories, even if they didn’t always seem that way at the time.
“I don’t want to put on airs,” he says. “I remember a lot of griping when we’d head out to pick berries. But even at my crabbiest, I couldn’t deny what coming home with a full pail meant. The griping was part of it. So was the pie.”
Reading the health of the forest
To wildlife biologists, berry patches reveal much more than where to find summer fruit.
The abundance—or scarcity—of the fruits reflects weather patterns, forest health, and habitat quality. Strong berry years provide ample nutrition for wildlife, helping many species raise young successfully and prepare for the changing seasons. Poor berry crops, caused by late frosts, drought, or other environmental conditions, can force animals to travel farther in search of food.
For black bears especially, the difference can be noticeable. When natural foods are scarce, bears are more likely to investigate neighborhoods and campsites in search of alternative meals. When berry crops are abundant, many remain deep within forests, where food is plentiful.
For Welsch, berry patches also remind people that they share the mountains with countless other creatures.
“My favorite thing to do out there is look for animal signs,” he says. “Tracks and scat show me I’m part of a larger ecosystem, standing in the same patch the bears and the birds are working. It connects me with the land. I treasure that feeling.”
Knowing which berries to pick
Not every colorful berry growing in the woods is safe to eat. Grafton advised that “white or whitish fruits generally should be regarded as toxic and poisonous.”
Plants such as poison ivy, poison sumac, doll’s-eyes, white coralberry, and mistletoe produce berries that should be avoided.
He also warned that the unripe fruits of may-apple and groundcherry are toxic, and that the seeds of cherries and pokeberries contain poisonous compounds. Even experienced foragers harvest only berries they can identify with certainty.
Fortunately, West Virginia’s best-known edible berries—blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, huckleberries, strawberries, and serviceberries—are among the easiest to recognize when ripe.
Why wild berries taste different
Welsch believes wild berries have flavors that cultivated fruit simply cannot duplicate.
“Wild berries had to fight for everything, so the flavor is concentrated,” he says. “A grocery-store blackberry was bred to survive a truck ride. A wild one was bred by the hillside it grew on. More acid, more perfume, less water.”
His favorite preparation remains the simplest. “Cornbread, sugar, milk, berries,” Welsch says. “That’s the one I reach for first because that’s what berries meant on the farm.”
Today, he also enjoys using wild fruit in savory dishes, especially blackberry gastriques and sauces served with locally raised beef.
“A blackberry-based steak sauce is a current favorite,” he says. “Wild blackberries, a splash of vinegar, and a good cut of beef will tell you everything about a West Virginia summer.”
More than a summer harvest
Every berry patch tells a larger story about West Virginia’s forests. It feeds migrating birds before autumn, fuels growing bear cubs through summer, shelters rabbits and nesting songbirds beneath tangled canes, supports pollinators, and sustains a seasonal tradition that has connected generations of West Virginians to the land. It also preserves recipes, family memories, and food traditions that remain deeply rooted in Appalachian culture.
For visitors exploring the state’s back roads and mountain trails this July, the ripening fruits are evidence of a healthy Appalachian landscape where people and wildlife continue to share the same seasonal harvest—a reminder that some of West Virginia’s oldest traditions begin with something as simple as a blackberry by the trail.
West Virginia
West Virginia town fires entire police force after chief resigns, sergeant alleges evidence room break-in
Former Barrackville Police Chief Zachary Freeburn. (Barrackville Police Department Facebook)
A tiny West Virginia town is at the center of a growing controversy after its entire police department was abruptly relieved of duty just days after its police chief resigned, sparking public backlash, allegations of government overreach and growing demands for transparency.
“Effective immediately, the entire Barrackville Police Department has been relieved of duty by the Mayor and City Council,” the department wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
“We are sincerely grateful for the support, trust, and encouragement shown to us by the Barrackville community throughout our service. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve and protect this town.”
DC POLICE OFFICIALS FACE TERMINATION AFTER FEDERAL PROBE UNCOVERS ALLEGED MANIPULATED CRIME DATA BY DEPARTMENT
The announcement stunned residents and marked the apparent collapse of the small department just months after officials celebrated hiring a new chief to rebuild the agency.
In December 2025, the department announced Zachary Freeburn’s appointment as its new full-time chief of police, highlighting his graduation from the West Virginia State Police Academy, his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and his advanced Drug Recognition Expert certification.
“We look forward to continuing to rebuild and strengthen our department to better serve our community, and we are excited to once again have a full-time officer leading our agency,” the department wrote at the time.
CITY MANAGER ‘BEGGED’ FIRED CINCINNATI POLICE CHIEF FOR MORE OFFICERS ON STREET AS CRIME SKYROCKETED
Former Barrackville Police Chief Zachary Freeburn accepts an award during a West Virginia law enforcement event in 2025. (Barrackville Police Department Facebook)
Less than seven months later, that effort had unraveled.
Last week, the department announced that Freeburn had resigned “effective immediately.” The agency said Sgt. Hunt would serve as officer in charge while assuring residents that police operations would continue.
“Until further notice, Sergeant Hunt will serve as the officer in charge of the Barrackville Police Department to ensure the continued operation of the department,” the department said, adding that questions about the leadership transition could be addressed at the next town council meeting.
NEWARK MAYOR QUESTIONS STATE POLICE TACTICS AT DELANEY HALL AFTER SHERRILL’S ORDER, CALLS AGENCY ‘A SWORD’
Instead, the department itself was relieved of duty days later.
A letter Freeburn wrote before the department was dismissed offers his account of why he stepped down.
The letter, which was shared with WBOY and intended to be read at the July 7 town council meeting before it was canceled, alleges that shortly after the newly elected town council took office, he was called into a closed-door meeting where he was told a council member would directly supervise the police department and implement operational changes.
Freeburn wrote that he objected because he believed those directives violated West Virginia law governing municipal police departments. He said that when he attempted to discuss the proposed changes, he was told, “If I give you a directive you follow it… I am in charge and what I say goes.”
He described the situation as creating what he believed would become a hostile work environment and said those concerns ultimately led him to resign.
In the letter, Freeburn also wrote that one of the biggest complaints he heard from residents was a lack of transparency at town hall. He said he chose to resign so the issues could be brought into the open, expressing hope that residents would finally receive “the transparency that they have been asking for.”
The letter notes it was written before the announcement that the entire police department had been relieved of duty.
Former Barrackville Police Sgt. Hunt, who has been publicly identified only by his last name, told WBOY that he discovered the police evidence room had allegedly been entered when he arrived at the department Tuesday morning.
Hunt alleged town officials had previously discussed conducting an inventory of the department without officers present. He also claimed that during a meeting with Mayor Tom Straight and members of the town council, Councilmember Alex Neville acknowledged taking a set of police keys.
According to Hunt, after he accused town officials of entering the evidence room, he and another officer, who together made up the department’s entire sworn force, were immediately relieved of duty. Hunt also said he informed town officials that he intended to seek whistleblower protections.
Fox News Digital has not independently verified Hunt’s allegations.
The controversy appears to have been brewing even before the department was dismissed.
Following Freeburn’s resignation, a Barrackville resident launched an online petition urging the town council to reinstate him, arguing that he had been “forced to resign due to what many residents believe was unnecessary overreach by the newly elected Town Council.”
The petition calls on town leaders to reconsider the circumstances surrounding the resignation, restore public confidence through transparency and reinstate Freeburn as police chief.
“Our Police Chief quickly earned the trust, respect, and appreciation of our community through his professionalism, leadership, integrity, and commitment to keeping Barrackville safe,” the petition states. “Although his time serving our town was brief, his impact was undeniable.”
Organizers also urged residents to attend the July 7 town council meeting to voice their concerns. The meeting was later canceled.
In a Facebook post, the Barrackville Town Council announced the meeting had been canceled because of “a lack of sufficient information regarding items listed under unfinished business.”
The cancellation has only fueled questions from residents, many of whom flooded social media demanding answers.
“Time to do some deep background on the city council. The truth is not being told,” one commenter wrote beneath the police department’s announcement.
Another resident joked, “Who is gonna look over the 5 residents in Barrackville now?”
Barrackville, a town of about 1,200 people in north-central West Virginia, is located about 25 miles southwest of Morgantown.
Marion County Sheriff Roger Cunningham previously told WBOY that the sheriff’s office will continue responding to calls in Barrackville, as it routinely does throughout Marion County, ensuring residents continue receiving law enforcement services despite the town no longer having an active police department.
Town officials have not publicly explained why the entire department was relieved of dutyor responded to the allegations raised by former officers.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Barrackville Police Department, Straight, members of the Barrackville Town Council and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office for comment. Fox News Digital has also contacted the West Virginia Municipal League seeking clarification on the authority of municipal officials over police department operations under state law.
Get the latest updates on this story at FOXNews.com
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