ATHENS, WV – Gov. Jim Justice visited students, teachers, and administrators at Athens Elementary School in Mercer County today for a full-school assembly to celebrate their academic accomplishment as one of the top-performing schools in West Virginia on the statewide Balanced Scorecard Accountability System.

During the ceremony, Gov. Justice presented Athens Elementary School with an award to commemorate the achievement.

“You have achieved something – with your great principal, your great teachers, your great superintendent – you have achieved something that doesn’t happen every day,” Gov. Justice said. “You have to love your teachers and thank them for all that they do all the time.”

The “Balanced Scorecard” paints a picture of where schools are succeeding and areas where they need to improve. Every elementary, middle school, and high school in the state receives a Balanced Scorecard each year that looks at five areas.

Athens Elementary School was one of the only schools in the state that exceeded standards in three of these categories this year.

“There are very, very few that have done as well as you and I congratulate you beyond anything I could ever tell you,” Gov. Justice said. “If you keep working really, really hard, you could exceed in all the categories.”