For 27 years, Brea Kitts has taught high school American history to teens in rural Appalachian communities along the Ohio River, places hollowed out by the collapse of rail yards, factories and coal jobs in the 1980s, and later scarred by the opioid epidemic. Many of the students she has taught — at both River Valley and Chesapeake High Schools — have experienced homelessness, living at motels or sleeping on the couches of relatives. In a district where many students struggle to pass state exams