Mathews Superintendent of Schools Nancy Welch apologized to Kamryn Blake and the other Mathews High School 10th graders who now have to retake the required classroom portion of driver’s education and promised to work with the students, allowing them some time during the school day to complete this work online.

Blake spoke on behalf of herself and her fellow sophomores during the Nov. 21 Mathews County School Board meeting, pointing out the injustice of having completed the coursework only to find out that the teacher did not have the needed certification.

“As students and young adults, when we make a mistake, we are asked to take responsibility for that mistake,” Blake said. “For example, if we had a nine-week project which we chose not to complete, we would be the ones to suffer the consequences. At the very least, our grades would drop significantly. In this situation, we are suffering consequences we did not create for ourselves.”

Students were due t...