Hancock County Schools Board Meeting 5-26-2026

001Yeah, Pledge allegiance to the flag of America and to the republic stands one nation under God indivisibley and justice for all. Welcome everybody to the JBR Center this Tuesday May 26 5:30 Mr. Fields on Mr. Feels we didn't have any delegations. >> No delegations. We're on to number five. Approval the minutes was our last several minutes that's been given those last meeting. Any questions on the minutes to remind everyone uh all items on this agenda were approved under the authority of the state superintendent the schools unless otherwise noted. Any questions on the minutes? Hearing none. We have special presentations. We have a lot here. Uh, first we have a public hearing concerning the budget and Mr. Chad Davis present. Mr. Davis. >> Yes. Please use the microphone so our people can hear and also people

002in the audience. Good evening. Never been here. All right. Um, good evening. I, you know, last time I was here was in February. I presented the financial staff to Hancock County back in February. I'm here. I I've helped this already work on the budget for the 2627 school year and I'm going to really kind of just highlight through uh some of the processes for the budget uh here for Hancock County. Uh budget is simply an estimate of income and expenses for a set period of time. So the budget that that we're going through tonight is for fiscal year uh 2027. The revenue breakdown for next year. Total revenues 43.5 million. Of that 19.3 million is local 29.3 from the state. Federal Medicaid revenues 575,000. A carryover of 6.5 million which I'll go into a little

003bit later and transfers to 783,000. Again, that's just for the general fund only. And that's all we're talking about right now is the general fund which is unrestricted uh money. Uh property classifications that we have across the whole state is class two, class three and class four. Class two property is really what you think about your owner occupied your your personal homes, your residential property, things like that. Class three uh is personal property any real estate that's commercially owned outside of municipality and class four properties that uh that are located inside of municipality. Reason for that I wanted to give you the assessed value breakdown for a comparison from 26 to 27 uh class. Uh in total uh Hancock County lost approximately $5.2 million in assessed values. uh for the upcoming year. Uh majority of

004that is in class four property. Um when you look at that for revenue, we want to look at how does that revenue compare from year to year uh based on uh property values. I got to put my glass on because I can't read. Um for the regular levy, there was a loss of approximately $144,000. and for the special levy $171,000. The total realized loss for the year is about $32,000 after allowances in that. The regular levy as I mentioned um is the levy that's set the rate is set forth by the state of West Virginia. Uh same rate statewide total revenue for the regular levy next year is $7.8 million. The excess levy uh is set by the uh voters in the county every five years. If you have you're fortunate enough to have an

005excess levy, which Hancock County does, um your revenue for the next year is 9.3 million, which is down, you know, slightly from the from the previous year. I want to look at the excess levy tax collections and there are 20 line items that go through the levy call. When I say the levy call, the the levy order and call that was voted on by the voters uh back I don't have your your levy runs through 2029 and there are 20 line items that's basically within that levy and these are the the line items of that levy call and how they're budgeted um for FY27 uh counties with an excess levy there 42 2 counties that have an excess levy in West Virginia and 13 that do not. Uh those 13 counties are listed there that

006do not have an excess levy in place for 2027. The state funding formula um I think Mr. Cummings had went over the state funding formula. The state funding form is primarily based on student enrollment and the staffing that's associated, you know, with with the enrollment numbers. Uh, next year compared to 2026, Hancock County will receive $1.1 million more than they received in the 206 year. Most of that increase really the only reason there was an increase was because there was a state of uh a state pay raise that was granted 3% across the board state pay raise to all employees and that drives the the state aid payments. If not, there was a if you noticed before there was a loss um there was also a loss in state in the current regular levy. When

007there's a loss in the current levy regular rate, then the state basically makes up that difference uh within the funding formula under uh step eight or step nine of the funding formula. So step nine of the formula, if you look at it, there was a decrease of $82,000, which increases your state aid uh funding. uh some other allocations that you receive here. The retirement allocation, again, it's only based on all of these numbers are based on the employees that are within the state funding formula, but not anyone that's on extended contracts, not anyone that's locally funded or funded through a special project. That retirement allocation was roughly 1.5 million. The unfunded retirement um is 3.6 million. That's based on the number of unused sick leave days that people can use towards retirement. That's really just

008an in andout entry. There's a revenue that that we receive for on behalf of from the state and then the offset is there's an expense that matches that number and it's 3.6 million. PIA is the health insurance that we receive uh through the state of West Virginia. The allocation, the revenue that we receive is 3.8 8 million for FY27. The carryover details I wanted to highlight a little bit more. If you look at, we're going to start back at FY25. Uh when I presented back in February, uh Hancock County ended FY25 in the deficit of 2,857 2,857. Um the carryover that was projected in the FY26 budget that we're in right now, uh there was a projected $1.6 million carryover. So you had a $2 million loss. You really projected that you're going to have

009a $1.6 million positive. So we started, if you remember back in February, I talked about it. We started FY26, $3.6 million a month. Um, so at the end of FY26, uh, right now we're projecting, and that's what you see in the 2627 projection, we're projecting a negative $6.5 million carryover or an ending fund balance at the end of FY26, a $6.5 million deficit. Enrollment numbers, um, extremely important to funding formula. how enrollment affects uh funding to Hancock County to all school districts across the state. This is just a five-year comparison. Um you know, we're you know, we're just I think over like 3,200 students now and we were about 3,800 in 2028. So the the enrollment continues uh has continued to drop as it has across West Virginia. Uh enrollment by school. not going to

010go down through it. Uh total enrollment at the end of the second month was 3,277 students um by grade. Here's the grade levels, you know, per per kid. So if you what we look at a lot of times is you look at 12 grades, 264 students and we have 191 or we have more specifically we have 203 kindergarten positions. So um at the end of at the end of the year the seniors are going to graduate and the next class is going to you know the incoming is 203. So we continue to continue to drop and it's something that we have to be very very cognizant of summary salaries and benefits make up the largest share $ 38.6 6 million of that 1.5 million in utilities. Uh this the number that you see the clearing

011accounts kind of skews our number here because the $6.5 million deficit um we have to have a a reserve for contingency in our budget. The reserve for contingency is the offset of that negative number. And our reserve for contingency this year is negative6.3 million. So roughly we have $200,000 um positive gain in FY27 if you take away the starting 6.5 to the -6.3 reserve. Um, after all that, we had roughly $7.5 million left to operate Hancock County Schools uh in the general fund after salaries and utilities and things like that. Uh, percentages. Um, want to show the difference. I know there there were severe cuts uh here for salaries and benefits. Um FY27 the projected salaries and fixed cost is $ 38.6 million compared to FY26 um of $42.5 million roughly $30.9 million difference. Um

012something to keep in mind in that FY27 number is that there is a 3% pay raise. there is a 3% PEIA raise in that or the numbers would be you know even greater. So the reductions um that have been made um if if there were no reductions made FY27 the number would have far exceeded the $42.5 million that was projected for FY206. Um I wanted to show a comparison of professional personnel over the formula uh where Hancock was in relation to the state. Um in percentage this is the percentage of of teachers over formula professionals over formula to enrollment. Hancock is number three on the list at 2% ratio service with 20th at 1.3% uh above the formula. The program function budget I'm not going to really go over it. It's just the budget broken

013out by program function for FY27. the debt service fund. Um Hancock County does have two uh bond they did run two bond issues. We do have two debt services out there that we have to pay back. Uh the amount of collections, the tax revenue that's projected is always the amount of the projected principal and interest payment for the next year. Uh so roughly $3.6 million in tax revenue projected uh principal of 2.6 6 and interest of 1 million and offsets to zero. Um fund 61 is our special revenue fund and these are all our special projects that are restricted grants such as title one, title two, IDA funds, child nutrition, etc. The revenue for those projects um is really 84 point 85% is made up from the revenue of the special projects. Uh the other

014portion is 15% which is a transfer from child nutrition. I'll mention that uh here in a few minutes. Uh projects that are in to be included. Um, we include all federal state grants. Anything that's restricted money, excuse me. Uh, anything that's restricted would fall within fund 61. So, any small grant that the county would receive, um, it would all be tracked through fund 61. There are some required state set aides from the uh, state funding formula. The first one is staff development. The staff development numbers while sign they're still required from the state for professional staff 13,000 service $5,267. Um the school bus replacement used to be restricted. However, um with the passage of House Bill 206, uh several years ago, they moved the money is now unrestricted. And on July 26, Hancock County did

015not purchase any additional school buses. Uh they chose to, you know, save the funds for school buses. um in the FY26 year. However, in FY27, um in the general fund, there is uh funds allocated to the replacement of two buses. Uh the the allocation that's set forth is from the state funding formula is $398,676. Uh faculty senate is an allocation that's set aside by the state. It's based on the number of teachers funded within the state funding fund. uh at $400 per per staff. Next year's allocation is 120,600. Title one is a federal program for supplemental supplementary services for reading and math. FY20 women's education is a little bit over a million dollars. Um, with those funds, we fund five to six professional elementary positions, half of an administrative position, um, supplemental instruction, summer, schools

016and tutoring programs and supplies and equipment is very limited from these federal funds. Title two, again, another federal grant. It's mainly for preparing training and recruiting of high quality teachers uh for professional development next year's allocation about $178,000. We're only funding about half of the position 1.25 professional 0.25 service. The remainder of those funds go to professional development for the county. Um, next is f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f f federal special education or IDA funds about approximately $1.1 million for FY27 for funding eight professional positions and one service position out of IDA funds teacher stipens and again supplies and materials are

017very limited to that program. uh child nutrition. Uh the revenue for child nutrition is 2.5 million approximately $2.5 million for next year. Um 677,000 for the breakfast uh the remainder from the lunch and the inter fund transfer which I'll mention here in a minute is a million7,000 uh for next year. Uh the expenses um are broken out there. Salaries, uh food, we do go through we use all the staff, the current staff that's in place with the uh payroll, uh the increases in pay. There is an escalation factor in milk and food for the upcoming year based on actual food expenses from the last completed fiscal year uh for us to arrive at the food and the milk expenditures. uh child nutrition county share. Um as I mentioned before, the county contribution budgeted for FY27

018is a million37,000. Um compared to the budget, if you remember back in February, one of the issues that Hancock County had was the budget that was placed in FY26, there was only $350,000 in the budget. And if you look at the FY25 um contribution that was in FY25, the uh the actual contribution was a million $94,000 that year and the budget in 25 and 26 were both at 73 $350,000. Um we have since um adjusted you know going through the process of adjusting the budget um in our projections for FY26 to to know we know that the uh contribution for the county is going to exceed a million dollars you know FY26 as well. Um, I have slide there for questions, but this is really, I guess, now I'll go through the hearing part. Does

019anybody have any questions? >> I have a couple questions. >> Well, we're on page uh we're on page two. Carry over. Actually, if we need to go to page seven when you were doing carryover 2025. Okay, we were negative 2 billion. Okay, but didn't we get a report, this board get a report on June 30th, 2025 that we were $5 million in the good? I think I provided you with that >> at the end of FY24, you were >> 2025 June June 30th, 2025 when we get our budget moving forward. >> It says five million I think I gave it. >> Yeah. And then later on that later on during that year when we were pay we were negative 35 and then you came on board and we found out we were worth like 1.52.

020Correct. >> Right. Yeah. And the numbers have been audited. Um I believe there were no changes to the to this $2 million number um audited. So our audited financial statement ending was $2 million deficit. So, if the board was presenting a $5 million carryover, you know, I can't answer. >> Well, I gave that to you. >> I'm about to put you on the spot when I gave that to you. We got I'll give it to you after she me. >> What's that? >> I just thought of me. >> No, no, no. We We know it's not from you. Gave you that information because we were trying to figure out where we were at and now we're all trying to figure out where it is. Um when you said we were trying to anticipate, you know,

021would what more aggressive for next year's cuts, did we take into consideration what kind of effect scholarship is going to have in the next 100 some year? Is that that figured in what we're going to do? >> The the revenue that is based here is actual revenue that we're going to receive. So the state aid allocations are are hard numbers that we're going to receive. How will the oak scholarships and decrease in enrollment going forward? So I know your present enrollment today is much less than it was the second month October 25. So how that will be impacted will ever impact 2028 budget. Then I saw on one of the funds you had the I think it was one of the areas we were carrying a balance of uh only $350,000 for child nutrition but

022it was like that was part of that 2 million that was one point and up we were supposed to carry 1.2. So how did it make $880,000 mistake? >> This wasn't budget. So that added into that $2 million which were negative. We didn't do that. >> Correct. That's part of the $2 million deficit. >> I don't think the people knew that, but now they do. >> Now they know. Excuse my >> That's only two questions I couple questions I have. certainly have confidence in you. You mentioned that these numbers have been audited. >> No, the financial statements FY25 numbers have been audited. These are budget projections for FY27. So, you know, we're we're ended we're, you know, close to the end of FY 26. we complete the end of 26 we'll do a financial statement

023those numbers will be audited and you know these numbers the FY27 projections won't be audited until January February March of 2028 understands right now I understand. >> But but that said, I mean, what you show has come back several times. Maybe I hold my hand and do something. >> You know, when I when I look at this budget, when I look at any county's budget, I'm looking at history and, you know, how do you spend money within a certain line item budget, you know, by code? And this the budget that's built for FY27 I believe is very conservative in that I believe that whatever is here you're going to you know you're hopefully you're not going to spend greater than that and the control that has to be placed and I talked with Mr. Saunders

024and Mrs. Harvey is is that this is a budget that we're setting for and we have to live within this budget. We can't overrun the budget. we can't overrun any project or any bucket of the levy or anything like that. And if we do that, you're going to end fine. You know, we could maybe, you know, potentially increase or decrease the deficit amount. That's the ultimate goal is is that we want, you know, we want to get the county out of the deficit. Um, but the budget I believe that's going to be set forth in 27 is very conservative that you're going to be able to meet the needs of the county based on the staff that was, you know, that was is in place and um, you know, you just have to live within

025the means of the budget. >> I like to thank you too because I know you did a lot of hard work like you you're a great guy. I can put you on the spot there. There was some there were some questions here. I think the people didn't understand it. I just want clarification, but talked a lot at the baseball game the other day, but we had some questions. Uh could you explain like the auditing process where it goes once it comes here? Where does it go after that? Who all sees that report? Um you mean after so the financial statements that were presented here uh was presented to the board I believe in February and uh West Virginia state auditor's office was the was the firm you know previously it was a private CPA firm

026uh that done the audit this year it was the West Virginia state auditor's office they come in they're they're doing testing on a multitude of things and mainly they're looking at the numbers that are presented on the financial statements Were they presented fairly, materially, and fairly, you know, exactly the way they're presented? Do they agree with the numbers that are presented on the financial statement? And if they don't, then they make, you know, they make changes or amendments to the numbers. Um, there's a lot of factors that they look at. They, you know, they do testing on payroll things. They look at they'll look at an employes's paycheck and go itemize break down from the amount of money they're paid. Are they paid on the right degree level? Are they paid on the right years

027of experience? Are their voluntary deductions correct? Are their tax information correct? Um then they go through the accounts payable portion. They'll pull a sampling and again it's a sample. It's only a sample. They pull a sample of accounts payable. um they're looking at high dollar amounts. They're looking at specific things and they're want to know was a purchase order issued um you know was all the proper purchasing procedures followed in that and if it's not then of course it's noted within the audit thing. The audit has not been released yet. The audit has has been I don't even know if there's a draft out there. There's not a draft yet. Um I I guess prematurely I'm speaking that the numbers aren't going to change but I think as of right now the draft um the

028numbers I have been given is that financially you're not your numbers are not changing from what was presented back in >> a point on it is from a few years ago. Um when once they left here through our finance guy, could they tell down state we may have been in some trouble and somebody should have come up long before you did >> if they looked at >> Yeah, that's what we're trying to get at. You know, I think I answered a lot of that in in February. Um you know, there was a lot of anomalies that happened in 2025. you know, you're coming off of COVID, the revenue decrease, personnel, your 143 positions over the state funding formula. Uh there were there were so many factors that happened in 2025 that I don't know that

029anyone, especially an auditor, could see that coming. They just, you know, there there's so many things that happened in 25 expenses that were unusual, uh, unusually high, you know, projects, large projects, uh, local shares of projects that was unique to Hancock County for that year and specifically happened. just so happens it all happened in one year. um in the year that you're losing a lot of revenue um because of co esert Hey question. And if you got a question, fire away. Is he talking to you TJ or >> um I guess there was no more question from you. I want to go ahead and conduct the public hearing um for the budget for FY27. In accordance with West Virginia code uh 1854C, a public hearing shall be held concerning the preliminary operating budget for the

030next fiscal year, not fewer than 10 days after the budget has been made available to the public for inspection and within a reasonable time prior to the submission of the budget to the state board for approval. A reasonable time shall be granted at the hearing to any person who wishes to speak regarding any part of this moment. The hearing none I recommend the hearing be closed. >> Mr. One thing um I think this is on your one drive. It's just kind of the same thing. The PowerPoint is a highlighted thing. This is more school dat the looking at a positive end to the budget. Correct. >> Correct. Yeah. You just have to everybody has to understand that you have to live within the budget itself and if you do that you know you're on the

031you're on this path to production. >> Thank you sir. >> Thank you. >> All right. West Virginia who winners specific. I have a few awards to announce tonight. Um the first is the Golden Horseshoe Award. Um, established in 1931, the Golden Horseshoe is the nation's longestrunn academic recognition program for students demonstrating outstanding know outstanding knowledge of state history. Each year, all eighth graders in the state of West Virginia participate in the Golden Horseshoe Exam, which consists of an essay and multiple choice questions about the history, geography, economy, and government of our fantastic state. We would like to congratulate the following students who received top scores on the Golden Horseshoe test. These students will be kned with award and all and inducted into the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe by the state's superintendent of schools at

032a ceremony in Charleston in June. But first I have from where middle school Eddie Middle School Keegan Can we have a microphone? >> Jess, do you want a picture? >> Just hang on up here for a second. And our third golden horseshoe winner is Aziz Albasha, a blend And do you have to look get a group shot. >> Yeah. Wait, stay over there. Um, this is one that it's really great contest because you only get one shot and if you get great, you practice, practice, practice, you get one chance to take the test. So, guys, if you would just share real quick each of you, um, what something interesting you found out about that's probably going to stick with you that you kind of like, that's pretty cool. You have to back up and use

033>> awesome thing about West Virginia that you can where you look. >> What did I miss? Thank you very much. >> I'm going to have them stand up here because I have one more award to announce. It's the West Virginia Seal of Biteracy. Um, a few years ago, West Virginia adopted the seal of diet literacy, which is a nationally recognized award presented to students who demonstrate proficiency in English and at least one other language. Students who wish to apply for the seal of biiteracy are required to take assessments in both English and one other language and achieve the required proficiency scores on both tests prior to graduation. Even though he's only finishing eighth grade, Aziz is our very first student to take and pass the tests required to achieve this award. And four years from

034now, he'll be recognized for this again at his high school graduation ceremony where he can wear cords um and be recognized at the recognition. I'm going to have his come up and we can give him his first person out of his graduating class. you should be a freshman next year to receive any sort of recognition points for graduation graduation gown and an assistance certificate from the state as well. There's another TJ one more picture. That brings us to D project search. Good evening everyone. Tonight we are celebrating a program that it's been two years in the making. Our WVU Medicine Written Medical Center's first class of Project Surge graduates. This milestone reflects not only the success of these students, but the strength of partnerships that make their success possible. Project Search is a collaboration between

035Hancock County Schools, WB Medicine, Rearen Medical Center, and the West Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services, providing students with a total workplace experience, workplace immersion, and preparation for competitive employment. Programs like this are essential because they create real pathways for students to remain gainfully employed in their home communities after graduation. When our graduates can live and work locally, they strengthen our workforce, support our economy, and enrich the communities that help shape them. From its beginning in 1996 at Cincinnati's Children's Hospital, Project Search has grown to serve over 54,000 young adults worldwide. And today, we're proud to add our outstanding students from Hancock County Schools to that legacy. At this time, I would like to introduce our team. I'd like to begin with our instructors, uh, Mrs. Kayla Violet and Mrs. Carrie Gillette, if they'd come up.

036and our WD medicine partner, Miss Kelly McCulla. >> Okay. So, I would like to introduce the rest of our team. Uh, I'm going to start off with Christa Derio. She is not here tonight, but she is more from our West Virginia Division of Rehabilitation Services. But tonight, we do have Gabby Riggs and Kaylee Childers, and they are both our skills trainers that are at the hospital full-time, and they are employed by New School. And then we have four of our interns that were at the hospital this year. Our first one is Dayton Davis, Secure Baltimore. Lisa Edwards. >> We have four additional interns that could not hear this evening, but I do want to recognize them. Two are from our track team at High that just came back from states. One is Taj Black Jessi

037and the other is Cecil Grace. Our last two interns are Nolan and Jane. We would like to give you a little sneak peek into the day in life of a project search intern. Okay, go ahead. Morning. I'm here and you're going to watch me get ready for the essentially. uniform and you're going to get quickly changed to that bus. Hey guys, you're right. Okay, now the hospital. and we'll see you guys when we get to the hospital. Clara is one of the eight project search interns from high school who spent a year at the hospital working in various departments to food services and everything in between. The eight interns, now graduates, brought so much to these hallways. Here's a look into what they did. That takes us back to I'm going to just see what

038I got today. Go see what we have down here for the day. >> So much stuff to do, but always so much fun people work. I love it. a very active member of local being a mentor along the way and those mentors have gone to beyond making sure they succeed and even have fun while they knew it to help you and to teach you something. Thank you. I mean thank you because it been a big help because we have a very high volume as you can see and having an extra hand with things is what our workforce has been huge. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think he is a great character when his father takes great pride in here so much as that her coming back. She said it helped her in so many ways. essentially

039and how we communicate with others. Maybe leave this open other people's feelings, you know, about you. >> I think that's very valuable to get that early on while you're still in school. So that way you can just kind of yourself in the life. We just try to work together and get the job done. While the pirate excited soften tracker whose reason of being a police officer with everybody. >> Another graduate program is Tissa. She envisions herself using the skills she learned to reach her life goal. I want to study as I study. I want to learn culture and I know a few words and also graduating is aid and camera shy and he said he learned how to interact with others under pressure and just little role day by taught me a lot for whatever

040wonderful program. >> People love to see some of them here. >> I hope they do. They've been great. I wish them all well in their future endeavors help so proud of them. Um watch them grow throughout the year. We knew that they had to um be super environment and started Cincinnati Children's Hospital and private search is nationally appropriate. So to help local is absolutely wonderful state of West Virginia, we are the second. So the success of this program is stateful program. So we are just able to touch so many lives and students that have disabilities are able to see themselves in work environments and and learn the skills that they so greatly and have the support while they're going through and then once they get through the program now they are set up for success

041in the workplace. These amazing Project Search grads say they couldn't have done it without the support of their instructors who were there with them every step of the way. Help me build my character. Thank for me and all of you having opportunity and I hope it's the same as next year. >> I love being here like home. Thank you to WVU medicine for creating that wonderful video and I think that just more than we could ever describe the program that you've done. So, so thank you very much video. And to close us out, I'd like Kelly to come up and then our student spokesperson, Miss Dara. I think she's basically the spokesperson all around now. We have enjoyed every second of having project search interns at WVU medicine where medical centers. It has been an

042honor for us and they've lifted so many days throughout our halls of the hospital. So, it's been an honor for us and we hope we have inspired you even in just a small way. But thank you to Hancock County Schools for allowing this to happen. And these instructors mean a lot to us. They have put their heart and soul into this. So, uh, such a program to be proud of and we're just very proud to be a part of it. And I have a feeling Zakra might have something to say to wrap us up. Any words of wisdom for the next interns? >> Go figure. She has something to say. Love it. That's us. And for the next interns, I want to say that I come in brave and always ready to do new things.

043Come wide open arms. So, always stay cautious. You don't always have to stay in one spot. You can move to a next spot. You can stay there. You can try new things. Always. Always. So, just take your time. Don't be scared for nothing. You don't got to be scared. You got to be brave. Always. Optimal. for me. >> I'd like to invite Mr. Zach White up. you with me. So, first I want to thank our board of education, our superintendent, all of the amazing teachers and principles who we've worked with over the last two years with W Extension. Let me introduce myself first. For those who don't know me, I'm Zach. I am the county extension agent for West Virginia University and we do a lot of work in Hancock County Schools. And that's a

044lot because of Erica. Erica and I work very well together to plan different activities with uh with especially our elementary schools uh here in Hancock County and we couldn't do it without like I said our board of education superintendent, our teachers, and our amazing principles. Um so, but today I wanted to take a minute to brag about our partnership with Hancock County Schools. Uh this year during the West Virginia Association of 4H Youth Development Extension Professionals, uh Eric and I were recognized with two statewide awards, the Excellence in Afterchool Programming and the Jim Killer Excellence in STEM, uh yeah, STEM award. Um these awards reflect a little over 350 hours of in school and community education that uh we completed last year. Um, but more importantly, it reflects the measurable impact of our partnership with

045Hancock County Schools. The excellence in afterchool programming award that we were presented for leadership in developing the 2025 Storybook Cafe program, Adventures in Agriculture. Over five weeks, locations across Hancock County schools hosted nearly 300 youth ages 2 to 16 for hands-on agricultural and literacy based activities, including test air raid, the science of butter, germination necklaces, grass heads, and homegrown soap. Through this program, we collected strong evaluation data showing that both youth and parents want more agricultural education opportunities in Hano County. The program also has worked to promote literacy and help promote summer uh summer learning loss. Uh and then the Jim Keller Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Award uh recognized our eight lessons storybook STEM program that we did with all third and fourth grade students in Hancock County last year. Uh this

046was a targeted initiative designed to help improve middle school test scores. Something that I learned that I thought was wild was that uh kids are not tested on science until fifth grade. Uh so in order to to help boost our fifth grade test course, we targeted third and fourth grade. Um so in just eight lessons, we were able to address nearly every third and fourth grade science standard through hands-on STEM experiences. and they had a lab to go with every single lesson that we taught. Our eval our evaluations showed increases in student competence in STEM. Uh while our teachers reported noticeable improvements in use of scientific vocabulary, engagement with STEM concepts, growth mindset, and students overall perception of science. We had eight amazing lessons which included DIY flashlights. Uh understanding weather, climate and safety. Uh

047catapult engineering, uh studying bird adaptations, the science of sound, spinning drop copters, states of matter with and then sedimentation and erosion models. I'm so proud to share these two awards with Erica. And then over the next few weeks, we'll find out if uh we win at the Northeast region, which is West Virginia all the way up to the through New England, which is so exciting. Um and then we'll find out if we're recognized at the national. But again, I want to thank um you all, our principles, and our teachers for all the support that you've given us uh since I've been here over the last four years. Uh, and I'm sure for that, and as a small token of our appreciation, we I brought pickles that we made with the Oakland High School food prep

048class. We were able to make we made around 200 uh jars of field pickles with uh anamat for >> they're amazing. Nobody's gotten sick yet, so Thank you. You guys worked well together. I interrupted a couple meetings. >> We're always absolutely champions. This year, the West Virginia Department of Education has expanded on its longstanding tradition of honoring teachers of the year and service personnel of the year. For the first time, they have expanded the celebration of exceptional commitment to education by adding two new categories, principal of the year and counselor of the year. These individuals will be honored at a formal gala in Charleston in September of this year where state winners will be chosen. We are pleased to announce our Hancock County nominees for this honor. Principal of the year, Denise Marisola, principal elementary

049school. to say about >> it is my pleasure to recognize Dr. Denise Maris has the two. Denise is a dedicated educational leader whose 26 years of service in Hancock County Schools has made a lasting impact on students, staff, and the community. With experience spanning classroom teaching, higher education, and administrative leadership, Dr. Premier Sola exemplifies a deep commitment to instructional excellence and continuous school improvement. As head principal of Wharton Elementary School, she has led meaningful gains in student achie student achievement while fostering a positive, safe, and supportive learning environment for over 800 students and 140 staff members. Her passion for mentoring educators, advancing literacy practices, and building strong community partnerships reflects her unwavering belief that every learner deserves the opportunity to succeed. Dr. Maris Sola's leadership, expertise, and dedication to students truly embody the spirit of

050a champion of learning. Congratulations, and our counselor of the year, Christina Rush from Oakland. Christina Rush is an exceptional school counselor who consistently puts the best interest of her students first. She is highly skilled in implementing a wide range of counseling strategies and techniques tailored to meet the diverse needs of her students. Mrs. Rush not only supports students at Oakland Middle School, but she also serves as a valuable resource for staff and parents. She provides staff with a supportive presence, actively listening to concerns and offering thoughtful feedback and guidance. Her commitment to supporting parents and families is evident in her work to provide resources, strategies, and practical tools that promote students emotional, academic, and physical well-being. As a key member of the administrative team, Mrs. Rush plays an important role in developing and implementing programs

051that improve attendance and foster positive behavior throughout the school. Her principal states, "She is one of the most dedicated and knowledgeable school counselors I have had the privilege to work with. Her expertise and professionalism are second to none, and the positive impact she has on Oakland Middle School is felt by everyone in the building." Miss Mrs. Christy Norish. I was playing Middle All right. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to go ahead and I would like to introduce um my two assistants here tonight with me uh because they um support me in anything and everything that goes on in the school. So um any of the success that we have um is shared you know uh with all of us. So here tonight we have Amy Wilson for fifth and sixth grade assistant principal

052and then we also have Amanda McKenna who is seventh and eighth grade assistant principal and they are a huge part of this success as is all of our staff and support personnel, students and parents tonight. All of the stuff that we are going to go over is our community at Oakland Middle School. Without all of you, this wouldn't work. So, I thank for that. So, leading off on our first slide here, leading off on our first slide here, you can see I got uh the wonderful um opportunity to talk about test results. And for the 2024 2025 West Virginia General Summit of Assessment results, you can see that in the ELA uh English language arts portion. You can see that our um fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade um scores are well above the state.

053Um as well as you can see that math is also well above the state. And of course, math has been one of our strong suits over the years. Uh we continue to focus on on that. Um as well as trying to improve our English language arts instruction. Um so for English language arts, we have for fifth grade, we were 4% higher than the state average. For sixth grade, we were 13% higher than the state average. Seventh grade, 18% higher than state average. and eighth grade ninth or 9% higher than the state average. For math, we were uh fifth grade was 15% higher than the state average. Our sixth grade was 40% higher than the state average. Seventh grade 26% higher than the state average and eighth grade was 21% higher than the state average. Going

054on to science. Science has definitely been something that um you know that we have recognized has been one of the um you know most difficult tests that we have um you know and we have been working along with Miss Sour and and with the elementary schools and trying to improve our test scores with that because our West Virginia um general assessment for science. The the hard part is these students are tested in fifth grade for the first time and each one of these students has to remember and they have to remember all of the third, fourth and fifth grade standards. They're tested on each one of those. So if you think about that, that is one of the reasons why of course we have um a lot of issues and um with science and the

055scores of course have been pretty low um for the most part just because of the fact that they have to remember a whole lot of information. And our teachers do a wonderful job at trying to of course get um push in some of those skills from third and fourth grade as well as address the standards for the fifth. Then you have our eighth grade. Eighth grade um is tested again and they of course cover the sixth, seventh and eighth grade standards for science. So again, a lot of information and once again our teachers do amazing job in trying to um of course um take care of all those standards and try to address them since students are successful. Um, and you can see that for fifth grade we were 6% higher than the state average

056and eighth grade we were 10% higher than the state average as well. And I know that um after looking at a lot of the things, we are very pleased um to of course start having um increased test scores um over the years. We've been working on this a lot with um some of um addressing some of the third and fourth uh standards um in the fifth grade as well as the sixth and seventh grade standards in eighth grade. So, we're very happy about um things that are going to be coming forward here soon um with next year's test scores. Then you look at our two uh 2025 2026 star benchmarks and you will see that in each one of these um you can see uh the darker blue is our fall benchmark. Then we had

057a winner benchmark which was the light blue and then the um I guess the red um portion there that is going to be our spring rate benchmark and you can see that we have been gradually um of course increasing those scores um throughout the year and some notable things that I can um let you know is that for English language arts our fifth grade we had a 10% growth from the fall to spring benchmarks. Sixth grade 10% growth from fall to spring benchmarks. Seventh grade was 5% uh growth from fall to spring. And then eighth grade was 13% growth from fall to spring. In math, fifth grade, we did have we did have a 4% decline um from the fall to spring benchmarks. uh you will see we kind of had a little bit of

058a drastic uh decline there um toward the end. Um and some of this is also you know we can attribute to um end of year when we do take these uh tests but still needless to say we still have a considerable amount of students that are at or above grade. Sixth grade we had 8% growth from fall to spring benchmarks. Seventh grade, we had 5% growth from fall to spring benchmarks. And in eighth grade, there was no growth from fall to spring benchmarks. But it is important to note though, too, that 76% of our students, you will see there are at or above uh grade level. So, we're very pleased with those numbers. We'd love to see the growth that our students make. Um and of course that is um we can attribute that uh

059to the wonderful instruction of all of our teachers um as well as the efforts that our students put forth every single day when they step foot in our building. Um, at Oakland Middle School, we continue to show positive growth in student wellness, attendance, and overall school culture. Uh, one of the things that we do are savers benchmarks. Um, if you don't know what that acronym means, it's social, academic, emotional, behavior risk screening. It's a lot. Um, but it gives us an indication if we have any students that are at risk for um, you know, any of those things. If they have social or academic concerns or anything, it flags them for us. Um, approximately 80% of our students remain in the low risk category for social, emotional, and behavioral concerns. Um, high-risisk students decrease from

0603% in the fall to 2% in the winter. And the way that we support these students is through classroomguided lessons from our guidance counselors, um counseling services, student surveys, and partnerships with community agencies such as YSS. Um we don't have a spring benchmark yet because they'll take it this week. Um so that we have a good indicator before they leave if anybody needs anything. Um our student attendance rate have steadily improved over the past two years and currently stand at nearly 94%. One major contributor to this um improvement has been the implementation of bear bucks um which was a program that um we started last year. Um the students earned bear bucks for positive behaviors both in and outside of the classroom things including their daily attendance. they get this money. Um, positive behavior and

061citizenship, academic effort, achievement, participation in class, demonstrating respect, responsibility, and school pride. Once they get this money, then they can redeem these bear bucks for incentives and rewards, helping to create a positive school culture that recognizes and reinforces student success. The program has increased student motivation, strengthened relationships, and encouraged consistent attendance and positive behavior throughout our building. Additional attendance incentives include home room competitions. Um, our guidance counselors held a hold of March Madness um where they pit home room versus home room during the month of March and they all compete um and the winning home room got a pizza party. And um we also did individualized support plans for students at risk. Uh we met with um Mrs. Douglas and she gave us a list of students who were um at risk of having a

062lot of attendance issues and we worked through the month of April and had incentives for them for each week that they were at school. Um, overall Oakland Middle School remains committed to supporting the whole child by promoting student wellness, improving attendance, and created a positive, engaging learning environment for all of our students. Okay, I am covering the dreadful student discipline. Um, I'd like to share two areas of focus. One will be our student dis behavior and the other one will be how we keep everyone engaged and connected. Over the past three years, we've seen a significant consistent reduction in our out of school suspensions. 23 24 school year, our suspensions decreased from 208 to 196. In 2425, we saw a much larger drop from 196 to 99. And so far this year, we are at

06367 suspensions, continuing the strong found trend. What's driving this improvement? We are using more inschool consequences to keep students in the learning environment whenever appropriate. We're also using our positive behavior support program, including Bearbox. It reinforces positive choices and motivates students. We are utilizing our school counselors more proactively to help manage student um conflict, regulate emotion to develop coping strategies. We're using restorative practices to help our students build accountability, empathy, and stronger relationships. At the same time, we know that student success is strongly tied to connection and involvement. We offer sorry we offer a wide range of athletic programs including volleyball, archery, boys and girls basketball, wrestling, football, cheerleading, and track and field. These programs build teamwork, discipline, and school pride. We provide diverse extracurricular opportunities such as kindness club, national junior honors society, art

064club, math counts, student council, chess club, dances, and pep assemblies. These activities help students build leadership skills and explore their interest. Students also have access to rigorous academic pathways, including high school credit courses like Spanish one and algebra 1. And we further support future ready skills through STEM and computers and coding electives. Together, these efforts reflect a balanced approach, reducing disciplinary issues while increasing student engagement by focusing on support, connection, and opportunity. We are creating an environment where students can succeed both academically and personally. Great for the for the last part that we have here. Yes, it is the last part. Um there's a lot of great things that we have going on in our on in our school and of course every principal is of course um has a lot of pride within their

065school where they wouldn't be there. Um but these are some of the secrets to our success. These are things that are unique to our school. Um, and I really feel um, like if you ever get a chance to talk over and to see us in action, you will definitely see why we're so proud of them. The first the first part is data analysis. Teachers consistently review student data and provide support interventions for student academic improvement. Also, we use this data to adjust instruction throughout the year. Um time and scheduling. Principles and the school counselors work together to um man maximize the time and scheduling to protect teacher planning time and to creating a schedule that promotes student learning. The student involvement students are given various opportunities to explore the arts, STEM and career exploration. They

066also have various sports and clubs that they can participate in. School culture. School administrators and staff work together to create a positive school culture for everyone. Students complete school climate surveys. Teachers greet every student in the morning. Administration does daily check-ins uh with teachers and students. And PBIS programs and school stores are essential to our student success. Collaborative school environment. I will say that this is one of the things when I came to Glenn Middle School that um you know and taking over um as the head principal that we of course have fostered and I think is just this is unbelievable when you see the collaborative school environment that we have and the way that our teachers work together to try to do what they can to benefit the results for our students and to

067work for the families in our community is most amazing thing and teachers at every grade grade grade level collaborate to ensure that lessons are rigorous. They're focused on grade level standards and they also discuss student data so they could help develop appropriate interventions and support. And ladies and gentlemen, that is Oakland Middle School. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm so proud of all my staff, my families, the whole community that that we serve. Thank you guys for everything. Let's All right. Good evening everyone. Mrs. Mart and I appreciate the opportunity tonight to share the end of the year results for W Elementary School. We are very excited tonight to brag about our hardworking staff, our amazing students, and our fabulous families. Mrs. Principal couldn't make it tonight and Mrs. Senior is still at school with our

068preschool graduation. So, here we go. We're in elementary school, home of the Little Riders. First, we want to meet we want you to meet our staff and we have some in the back there. Thank you guys for coming out tonight. It's our little rider service. Thank you. We have 131 total staff members. That consists of professional staff and our service personnel. We have highly qualified teachers and support staff. We have four teachers that will be retiring this year. We have Donna KS who she's in the back. Wave Donna KS school. We have two second grade teachers, Dina Lion and Patty Boniti. And we have Paul Gazo, our custodian that will be retiring this year. But our staff, like I said, are highly qualified, both our service personnel and our support staff. have 100% of our

069kindergarten and second grade teachers that have committed to the letters training through the West Virginia Department of Education to expand their knowledge of the science of reading. We have six nationally board certified teachers in our building. Our staff, they're resilient, they're passionate about what they do. I'm sorry. We just had the best stuff in genuine and their care and concern others. It's been a difficult year this year and they show up every day. Thank you. Now, to meet our students, we have 786 little riders in our building currently today and that consists of preschool through fourth grade. Out of that, 60% of them qualify for low socioeconomic status. However, this enables us to be a title one school to provide support for these students. We also have 32% of students on individual education plans with

070diverse learning needs. We have exceptional students who rise, grow, and succeed together. We are very proud of them. Our mission at Wick Elementary School, every student matters. Every moment counts. We focus on academic growth on all of our students. It is data datadriven instruction and we do it through a whole child approach. Now for our performance indicators, the first performance indicator I will share with you tonight is our English language arts and reading data. Okay, before I share this data, I want to explain that the data that you see on the slide here are reports from the state benchmarks, not the district benchmarks. The state benchmarks expectations are more rigorous and establish higher proficiency expectations. So, as you're looking at the data, you're going to see at the beginning of the year, you may look

071at that and say, "Oh my goodness, the beginning of the year data is very low." But that is because we set the bar high. We use the state benchmark data. So, looking at our English language arts, in every single grade level, we have shown growth. All of our grade levels have seen 50% or more proficiency. Looking at this one data piece, for example, in kindergarten started out at 68% proficient, ended the year at 78%. However, these are still preliminary. All right? Because we still have some some students that still need to be tested. But currently, right now, we are at 78% proficient in reading for kindergarten. First grade, first grade students take two different assessments. They take the early literacy assessment at the beginning of the year and then in the middle of the year

072they take the star reading. So that's why you see a couple numbers here for first grade. At the middle of the year they are at 33% proficient. Currently right now preliminary they're at 54% proficient. Second grade started out at 20% proficient and is currently at 68% proficient. And our um third grade started out at 22, currently at 54 and fourth grade was at 30% and currently now they're at 55% proficient in ELA. Our next performance indicator indicator is our math data. And as you can see in math, just looking at this one assessments, we have shown growth in every single grade level. And that is due to our amazing staff, students, and support of our families. So if you look at kindergarten, they started out the year at 78% increased to 81%. First grade 13%

073and improved to 59% proficient in math. Second grade started out at 12% at the beginning of the year and increased to 68%. Third grade started out at 16% and improved to 68%. And fourth grade started at 10% and increased to 55% proficient in math. So this is just one of our indicators. Mrs. Marty is going to share the data. She led the team in preparing for the West Virginia General Summit of Assessment Test and does a fabulous job. So she's going to share this indicator. Thank you. So, for the um West Virginia General Summit of Assessment, we are very proud of your elementary that we have had no dips in our scores in either ELA or math since 2020. So, our scores have consistently increased in both domains. Diving a little deeper into this data,

074I looked at state targets. Each year, the state sets a target of proficiency percentage for us to reach. And it wasn't until 2023 2024 that we met the mass state target and we met that again in 2425. However, this year based off our predictions and seeing how things are going and it's still there, you know, scores are still rolling in. There's still embargo, but we're confident that we will exceed um both state targets in ELA and math with our third and fourth graders this year. They did a fabulous job. Um looking at our predictions, we meet twice a year with the third and fourth grade teachers to go over um our students and make predictions on how we feel they will do at the end of the year on the GSA. Um, and we look

075at the whole student. We look at their STAR scores. We look at any modules they take. We look at their GSA benchmarks and have a discussion on how we think they will do and then what we need to do during our win time or MTSS time to meet those needs and close those gaps. So, with our prediction um, in the middle of the year for third grade, we predicted 69% for ELA and 70% for math. In fourth grade, we predicted 66 for ELA and 71 in math at the end of um at the middle of the year. And again, we're looking to exceed those um predictions for both third and fourth grade this year. We're very proud of the teachers and the students for how hard they worked. Another area we wanted to share tonight

076is our win time, also known as formerly MDSS. And when time stands for what I need time. So I have to in my mind I've been so used to talking about MTS MTS to change it to new new terminology wind time. What I need time. All right. So this dedicated time has made a significant impact in our student growth at Wen Elementary School. We have it embedded in our master schedule that all students will receive this win time two times during the day. Once for ELA and reading and once for math. The wind time consists of tiered support system for all students. That is for reading and math. It is data driven. There is frequent progress monitoring and all the teachers utilize evidence-based strategies during this time. And as you can see in the slide,

077students work in small groups. They work with special education teachers, our interventionists, our title teachers, our instructional aids. Everyone pulls together during this win time for our students to be successful. I also have some win outcomes here I want to share with you. We looked at the student growth percentile in the Renaissance learning platform and Renaissance indicates that if a student student can gain 100 scale points that is proficient growth. So we looked at the student growth percentile here and as you can see for star reading 71% of our students grades K through four made mastery. 62% of them scored 100 scaled score points by the end of the school year, which is huge. Early literacy is our kindergarten. Kindergarten students were at 68% proficient overall. Looking at their student growth percentile, looking at every

078individual student, we had 68% that increased their scale score by 100 points from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. And then looking at star math overall 77% and um the increase of 100 points per student we had 71% of students that were able to increase their scale score by 100 points. I also wanted to share our data with our students with diverse needs. Our students on individual education plans. We have seen so much growth with our students with diverse needs. Students with diverse needs receive continued support through individualized instruction and targeted interventions. We have a gifted program some of our students participate in for enrichment. We utilize LAMP. Lamb stands for it's mouthful here. It's language acquisition through motor planning and this helps support their communication and development. We also

079have sensory events that we have throughout the year. The diverse learners, some of them went to the double D um double beast um stables for a field trip for a sensory integration field trip. We also have adapted PE, music and um art for them for some of our students. Some of our students um also have access to our unique learning curriculum. And also this year for the first time um led by Cardi Ford our speech therapist we have a concession Clark program which helps them build life skills, communication and occup occupational skills. It was very successful and those are the pictures you see in the slide right there. And also this is our first year that every single grade level had a co-eing classroom which made a big impact on our student growth. And the

080next performance indicator miss share attendance. All right. So for attendance our daily average rate was between 92 and 95%. Um but chronic absenteeism is going to be one of our main focuses as we move into the 26 27th school year. Um right now we have about 92 students who have missed 17 or more days and that puts us at partial mastery according to the state. So again, that's going to be one of our focuses moving forward. Um we do have incentives and different different interventions in place throughout the year. Um the pictures you see are from our claw machine. So we have whole classes going um for monthly winners with um high attendance. We have individual students who go um with our you know nine or less equal success. Um, we also track uh attendance

081at our attendance committee meetings and we have family outreach and call families to see how we can support them in getting their child in school. One final push we're having for the end of the year is a show up and glow up party on the last day of school. Any students who miss 17 or less days will get to attend a glow dance party. The next performance indicator we're going to discuss is our behavior indicator. And I wanted to talk about the safety huddle because the safety huddle is very important at elementary school. It is a daily collaboration to address student and building needs. And this safety huddle helps prevent and reduce behavior concerns at weird weird elementary school. Just to give you a little bit information about the safety huddle, we meet daily for

082approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Participants on the team consists of our administrator, our BRO officer, nurse, our counselors, and our CIS. During this time, we address student and building needs proactively while mitigating risks throughout the day by collaboration and communication. Areas that are addressed during this safety huddle are building concerns, medical concerns, legal concerns, safety concerns, and we evaluate high-risisk students. So, this safety huddle does play an integral part of our behavior performance indicator. Also, our um counselors um provide social emotional learning which helps our behavior indicator as well. Our counselors, Miss Stacy and Miss Sarah, do a fabulous job. They provide tiered behavior interventions, counseling, and support groups. They utilize Close the Gap for our students in third and fourth grade. So, students in third and fourth grade check in um in the morning

083on a digital app and the counselors know right away if they need to go check in with them. Our counselors also do physical check-ins where that students actually come to their room and they check in. They also help us with our SEAG comprehensive threat assessment. Um they play a big role in that and they also help us with our chance. Um and that's our behavioral expectations that we um implement schoolwide. So currently looking at our behavior performance indicator making a prediction as of today we are predicted to exceed we have less than 5% of our students that have had out of school suspension. So we're very excited about that. I can't forget our communities and schools. Um Kristen Cross is our communities and school coordinator. She does a fabulous job. She collaborates closely with our

084amazing health center next door. She was responsible for Clara, our therapy dog. And I do have some data on Clara. Clara has attended 45 social emotional learning groups this year. And she's been to 216 class visits. So, she does play an integral part in our students um behavioral performance indicator as well. And we hope for um years to come that we can sustain this role of communities and schools. And I also hope just a little bit more data on communities and school. With the collaboration of Libert Elementary School Health Center, we had 53 students that received the backpack program on Fridays when they get to take snacks home. We have also provided winter clothing, coats, hats, and gloves to our students. We've had 388 check-ins at our clothes closet. Students that may need socks, change

085of um pants or shirts. We provided um communities and schools has provided vision support. They provided school supplies and hygiene supplies to our students. Um they also during our back to school popsicles with principles, Kristen Cross set up haircuts for our students which was wonderful. The parents were so appreciative of that. Also during Thanksgiving, we gave out 31 turkeys, um assisted seven families during the holidays. CIS has a total of 30 students on active case load and also an additional 91 students. So, communities and schools, our counselors, our safety huddles, all of that plays a very important part of our behavior performance indicator. All right. And we just want to highlight some of the wonderful things that we do at Weon Elementary School um with family engagement and special events. We have um a very

086active PTA, a very wonderful title um team and a a fabulous school community that all comes together to make these events possible. Um from the pictures we have our math title night, which was um pause play and problem solve with Clara. We had our March tournament of books where students can listen to different books and vote on them and we have a final winner. We have our annual popsicles with principles which is our back to school kickoff. We also this year had Bloom and Grow which our title le and this was an opportunity for parents to come in and get information about the next grade level. So a little bit of a transition meeting to understand the curriculum and expectations of the grade level their child will be in next year. We also had a

087bubble run this year and we have a uh general summit of assessment parent prep where the third grade families can come in since that's their first year taking the test and get to understand what the test is like and even take a practice test with their students. We also have the fourth grade um team which most of them are here tonight. They do the Nutcracker event every year which is a STEM activity paired with a writing. Um, our kindergarten team has an annual holiday extravaganza. Our first graders put on a President's Day program and our related arts team um, organizes our schoolwide Veterans Day program. We also had a second grade publishing event where the students um, publish in a book and read it to their families. And third grade is having a wax museum

088program coming up um, this week. This was also the first year that weird elementary school attended math field day. We had four finalists from our school go down to Wheeling University and participate in math field day. They competed against Ohio, Brook, and Marshall County in different math activities. Um, they really enjoyed it. It was a fun time. We also had our annual, this was our second annual science fair this year at 10 to 15 minutes. We could go on and on. And I we went over time. I wanted to share a video, but I'll I'll save with you guys. You can look at it later. But if you want to discover more about Weird Elementary School, this is where you can go. It's our Weird Elementary School websites. And on the website, you'll see monthly

089family newsletters. You can look at our Facebook page. We have an active Facebook page, our YouTube channel. If you want to find and listen to wake up with the Wes news and if you want to see our WES tours, they are al they also can be found on our YouTube channel where our support staff did a great job um letting the public inside our building by filming these tours. So, thank you for listening to our performance data for the 2526 school year. We appreciate it. Good evening. I'm Mark Sweder Ivory. I'm presently the principal of Middle School. I am here with Mr. Tim Dary. He oversees fifth and sixth grade and he's our athletic director. I'm also here with Amberio. She oversees our seventh and eighth grade and she handles all the special education at

090our school. Um we were given 15 minutes and we were given three topics to address. So, we're going to go because it's 7:15 and it looks like everybody's tired. So, here we go. I know I am. Um, I'll introduce Mr. She's going to talk to you about academics. >> Like Mrs. Schwitzer said, I'll be short this weekend. Okay. So, our students are given star benchmarks in both reading and math four times a year. So, they take them quarterly. Um, when looking at the results, we like to focus on the growth model. The goal is to see a decrease in low growth and an increase in high growth. Um, as you can see, when comparing overall growth, our students increase their typical and high growth in both ELA's there in math. Um, when we looked at

091last school year compared to this year, um, we also like to use our star benchmark results um, when we do our MTSS groupings. So, that's been helpful there. um at where middle school we also use the cambium benchmarks. So this is um really been beneficial to our students because it's given them the opportunity to take two benchmarks before they take their spring summitive. So typically they take one you know like around October and then another one again January and it's really allowed for our test scores in percent proficiency to increase overall. Um and it worked out that we got to actually have our test scores from this year. So, um, when you look at our ELA, our overall percent proficiency increased by about 20% from the first benchmark in October to the spring summitive. And

092our math um increased by about 30%. So, that was pretty significant math. Okay. Um, okay. Our school is uh very big on our data spreadsheet. This is a great resource for a multitude of things. Um, we log all of our teachers log all of their benchmarks there. Um, it's been a great resource for MTSS grouping. It's and it allows our teachers to not only see growth within their classes, but to really focus on the individual student growth. Um, on our data spreadsheet, teachers report their star scores, um, their star grade equivalency, the Cambian scores, and their proficiency levels. They report their quarterly grades there. Um the ELA teachers report the the GATE scores there. Um if the teachers give the modules, they report that there too. Um this year we actually added a column to

093to allow for teachers to log students uh summitive score change. Um so that's there so they can see, you know, just look at the individual student and see how many points they hopefully increased by from last year to this year. Um the data spreadsheet has been a great way for teachers to get a good baseline of where their students are at the beginning of the year. Um and it's also been a good resource for teachers to be able to track student performance from fifth grade to 8th grade because once um the spreadsheets there, you know, we have we keep that from year to year. So you can always go back and see, okay, where was this uh student at in sixth grade? And you can see where they're at now and again just focus on

094that individual student growth. Okay. So, I'm gonna turn it back over to um to Mrs. Whiter to talk a little bit about attendance. >> Okay. I get to talk to you all about attendance. Um this year I went in and we looked at the ab absentism on the West Virginia balance scorecard in 2425. was 18.1%. 25 26 22.9 that meant that our chronic percent went up 3.8%. Then in looking at our zoom scores in 2324 we had 92% of attendance 24 25 92.1 so our chronic rate went up by 0.1 and then in this year we went in and looked at August 24 to May 1st 25 our attention rate was 92% and again this year from August of 25 to 26 we were also 92% %. So that tells us that our attendance rate

095hovers right around 92%. But then we ask ourselves, well, what about that 8%. What we need to do and what do we need to increase and improve the attendance at where middle school? We do like most other schools do, we have attendance meetings with our attendance director, um, Miss, uh, Douglas, and then she comes in and meets with us on a regular basis with the students. They'll bring them in, they'll call parents, they will make sure that they get to the bottom of what's going on with these students and why they are missing school and make a plan of how to get them back to school. We have regular meetings at our school with our staff. It will be administration. It will be our PR officer, our n school nurse, our social workers, and um

096anybody that's involved with our students and teachers that we will sit weekly discuss all of our students what their different needs are and how can we improve and get them to school. We also are part of the Treny task force in Hawk County where we meet on a regular ba basis and discuss countywide things that we can do to improve attendance. Some of those were the attendance initiatives like our nine or less equal success. Just recently we held an inschool dance for our students who met that challenge. In addition to that, we've also ran a March Madness sponsored by our community and schools that through the month of March weekly they track student attendance. Those students then were rewarded the winning classes with different award a different award from uh our Mr. D Mr. Murray

097who are our community and schools representative. Presently in checking we have 23 students that have perfect attendance, that have faithful attendance and that that means that they have missed five or less days of school. So I will now let Mr. talk about behavior. >> Good evening. Uh I am tasked with uh talking about school discipline. It's always a fun subject, but it's necessary to give you the snapshot of the school. Um, just generally speaking, we have 117 kids account for excuse me, 154 of our school violations. They're the more serious ones. Um, as far as the number of occurrences, the most prevalent would be uh disruptive behavior, disre disrespectful conduct, and technology misuse. So, how do we handle these behaviors? Uh, we have a three- tier program. The first thing that we do is character

098education. So when our counselors come into the classroom throughout the year discuss all that we we do throughout the building in terms of character education. There's four character traits. Respect, responsibility, honesty, integrity, kindness, empathy, self-discipline, fairness, and courage. Um, next thing would be positive uh behavior intervention support PBIS. So, a lot of what uh like Oakland had did. Uh we have a token economy and we have uh tickets that we use. You can see on the picture there uh students can buy things on the card throughout the year. We also have a raffle at the end where they can save their tickets. There's large ticket items there, TVs, scooters, all kinds of things. A lot of students will save up their tickets and go in that raffle and use that as well. Yeah. And then

099we also have um positive office referrals. So if teachers come up to us, let us know if teachers are students going well. Um we will they'll write to the office up or we'll call home, give them a ticket as well. Um and then the last thing is champs um which is an acronym for conservation, health, activity, movement, participation and success. Um, so this basically I like champs a lot and we use champs a lot in that it's it's very routine based. It's what you should be doing as good teachers. Um, we also have signs in individual classrooms. We encourage teachers and students to do those together to come up with acronym that fits best in their classroom and we also do champs walkthroughs to hold staff accountable for falling through on CHAMPS. We meet regularly

100and talking about behaviors. We we see CS excuse me staff. We meet every Tuesday with the administrative team, discuss all the things we need to discuss related to discipline, things of that nature. I think that's it. We thank you for your attention. We're short and we're sweet and we all points we were asked to hit. And good night. That's a good time. We're going to get through the rest of the agenda. Thank you for participating. That brings us to number seven of our agenda. superintendent information. I don't really I just want to say thank you to our parents, guardians, community members, relatives, faculty, and staff for any part during our graduating seniors time at Hog County Schools. This time, Thursday or Friday depending on which high school you're in. I also want to thank I

101also want to wish our seniors the best of luck and whatever they choose to do following graduation. And one last thing, place an order for fair weather on Friday after we wear guys outdoor cereel. That was quick. uh a couple retirements certified Dina line Barbara Switzer I tucked out before we could recognize we also have a new assignment under certified is Matt Shepard as director of transportation 240day contract starting May 28th we have a retirement classified demand get and all other items as presented personnel. This brings us to number nine, miscellaneous under agreements. Memorandum of understanding is recommended that Hancock County Schools enter into a contractual repayment agreement with the West Virginia Department of Education regarding the appropriation of funds. This would be the $8 million that was appropriated by the state legislators. This is

102our agreement that we're entering into. State legislators allocated the money to the Department of Education. Department of Education has allocated that money to us. Uh we're currently tenatively looking at a three to five year repayment plan for that $8 million loan. Um and again this was what came through the state legislators. money was appropriated to the West Virginia Department of Education who in turn uh lent the money to us and that is the agreement the we were talking about any questions what's happen >> well we have some options we can do obviously Last year we all heard Minister Davis go through the budget for next year. It's probably not the worst. We really knock it out of the park staying under our budget. There is no actual reschedule. It's not like a car loan. We

103got to do 30 payments every first of every month. So we are still open to how we can repay that. And now we'll save up $8 million on rent one big check input of the commercial payments as we are able to progress. Remember when we talked about budgeting before we went through all the different streams of revenue that we get. We don't get $50 million July 1 and then spend the rest of the year working on them. So we do have to keep some money back. Um like just now coming in the summer we have to make payments July and August payments to our employees for payroll. They get there still spread out but we have to pay this back. So whenever we do accumulate a reserve then we're going to start paying back about

104million and a half two million a year surplus. If we're going to do it at that point at five, say five >> and again there's nothing on set in stone that after five or default and they're coming after us. That's the payment. It's what we're looking at as a guided year repayment plan. Obviously, if we're if the budget holds true and we end up with a $100,000 surplus, that doesn't go a long way towards paying 8 million. But as we progress, we should then becoming more and more positive and gain more and more money as we streamline and move forward. >> Try to do a levy to pay that back. >> I would I would say no. We currently have an excess levy that operation is open till 2029. We have a bond levy that's

105currently financed. We have an excess levy that's up in 2029. So we're going to re be repaying once we accumulate savings budget process in the future. All right. all others as presented. Number nine, number 10 is finance. Two things I want to point out. These are the volic project. We're working through that money that was appropriated by our citizens in a vote. So, we have the uh roofing skylights at Beer High. We also have the vendor to do the back stop winches at Beir High School. So, Glenn Middle School and Bear Middle School. That's for basketball hoops that go up and down. We're replacing all those uh and all other items as presented in finance facilities report. Mr. Arna last month for major improvement project building for almost a million dollars uh for some HBAC

106upgrades. Um in order to do that the next step is to get approval from the state which we had to put on this agenda was to amend uh the CD which we call exit of educational facilities plan 10ear strategy plan that's uh includes facility conditions enrollment data and operations and curricul So uh in order to do that we are going to get approved on this agenda. So next month the state board can put it on their agenda >> and that plan usually the run every 10 years 2020 was the last time that that CFP was was approved. we have to make an amendment to order to be eligible. And we definitely want to be eligible, right? We're asking the school building authority for about $4 short of a million to help with our project. Sure,

107we have TR eligible for that million dollar. Any questions on the facility report? I just like to say I want to say good luck to two softball teams tomorrow kind of weird but they are playing each other. So unfortunately they're going down state to play each other but I don't have to lose but I see both teams play. They're both very good. Uh whoever wins play the other go back up. I just didn't like saying we had to go down and play each other right off the bat. >> I want to correct my statement earlier. We weren't $5 million to carry over 634 million. I made a mistake. So I'm correct that. >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Our next meeting is a regular meeting. It will be on Monday again, June 22. that um

108we are returned.