001Thank you everyone for taking evening to come spend some time with us. We appreciate it and we really appreciate being able to honor your your uh children this evening. So, I want to call this um June 3rd Morton County Board of Education meeting to order and we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America to theublic nation under God. Indivisible Everyone is present to see me except for close. We will approve the agenda and agenda. There is one change and that's number 10 C and the contractor that has been the um HVAC replacement at Vidmire is Haral Inc. amount of the contract is 1,769,000. That's the only change I have. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda and agenda? Any questions or concerns?
002All those in favor? The festivities begin. Okay. and who smiths that we're here to honor our students uh this evening and again thank you for being here. We know you're all very busy people. Appreciate you being here and hope you got some ice cream next door. Um it's been an amazing year. A lot of really great uh student accomplishments and uh we're probably just touching the surface because we realize that outside of school our students excel at a lot of other things besides uh what they do in school. So again, thank you for being here. Um before we start our awards, uh the same thing that I did at graduation, I would like the students who are here to turn to your left or your right and thank your parents, your grandparents, or whoever's with
003you for everything they do to help you get here. Okay, we've got quite a long list to go through and we'll get started now. Turn back over to Miss Smith. I think our first award tonight is the West Virginia Young Raiders. That Okay, I go to my spot. All right, let's get this party started. All right, we're starting off with the West Virginia Young Writers. And then since 1984, every student in West Virginia has had the opportunity to participate in the West Virginia Young Writer Contest, which celebrates creative writing skills. First place county winners have submitted to the state level. The essays are compared, scored, judged against essays submitted from students in all counties of the state. Only one essay in each category is deemed the state winner. So for grades one through two, if
004you're here, please come up. ReSire Elementary School first place with our elementary school. Second place, Colton Henderson, Paul Elementary School. Third place. All right. Gra through four. Ava Orum, Warm Springs Intermediate School. First place. Second place from Warm Springs Intermediate School, Paige Lancaster. And third place, Warm Springs Intermediate School, Marsha Meyer. [Applause] Grades five and six. First place, Warm Springs Middle School, Georgia Smith. [Applause] Second place, Warm Springs Middle School, Payton [Applause] Hickball. And third place, Warm Springs Middle School, Casey Twig. [Applause] Seventh and eighth grade. First place from Paulo High School, Lucy [Applause] Carter. And third place, Fallhole High School, Justice Smith. [Applause] grades nine and 10. First place, Berkeley Springs High School, Bladeen Yonder. [Applause] Second place, Berkeley Springs High School, Brooklyn [Applause] Yos. Third place, Barkley Springs High School, Abigail Close. All
005[Applause] right, grades 11 and 12. First place, Paul High School, Colton [Applause] Balstat. Second place, Paul High School, Alexis Kidwell. [Applause] And third place, Paul High School, Andrew [Applause] Herwood. All right, I on to our regional social studies fair. Students develop and create a project as well as an abstract relating to a social studies discipline and present a 5minute speech. Division one, which is grades three through five here. First place at Warm Springs Intermediate School, Greenley B. [Applause] First place, Warm Springs Intermediate School. Even Taylor. [Applause] Second place, Warm Springs Intermediate School, Nathan [Applause] Close. Second place, Warm Springs Intermediate School, Mia and Matthew Kwell. [Applause] Did they actually do their project together? Yes. Oh, wow. How'd that go? It was great. Better than my kids. Second place intermediate school, Meredith [Applause] Holmes. Second place,
006Warner Springs Intermediate School, Lucy Roberts. [Applause] Second place, Warm Springs Intermediate School, Harper [Applause] Thompson. And third place, Pleas Elementary School, Matthew Mahal. Ready. [Applause] All right. Submission two, grades six through eight. Second place, Warm Springs Middle School, Paige Hook and Emma [Applause] Michael. Second place, Warf Prince Middle School, Macy Montro and Riley Yo. [Applause] Third place, Orange Springs Middle School, Piper Bourbon. Third place, Orange Springs Middle School, Stella Close. Third place, Warm Springs Middle School, Estella Pow. [Applause] And third place, Orange Springs Middle School, Kendall Risinger. [Applause] Just good. All right, moving on. Division 3, grades 9 through 12. First place at Berkeley Springs High School, Abigail [Applause] Close. And third place, Brooklyn Springs High School, Oliver J. [Applause] State Civil Studies Fair with honorable mention, Berkeley Springs High School, Abigail Close. [Applause] And
007a third place, Warm Springs Intermediate School, Ethan Taylor. [Applause] All right. I got the privilege to list off a number of different award classes. Uh the first one is the regional science fair. Uh, a science fair project is a unique way for students to pose questions for which they must seek out answers and to satisfy their own curiosity about the world around them. The science fair project is an experiment, a demonstration, a research effort, a collection of scientific items or display of scientific apparatus presented for viewing. It represents the efforts of a student's investigation into some area of interest and provides a way for the student to share the results of those investigations. Through the development of a science fair project, students gain a firsthand appreciation for of the work of scientists and the value
008of their discoveries. So, division one is the elementary division and the first place winner goes to Emma from Warm Springs Intermediate [Applause] School. Second place is Corey Ay from Another second place is Cohen Barton from Warm Springs. Uh, another second place, Evan Horn from Warm Springs. [Applause] Third place, Aniston Zano from Warm Springs Intermediate [Applause] School. And lastly, third place finish, Justine [Applause] Kennington. [Music] [Applause] Division two is the middle school division and Mr. Liv and I had the privilege to judge at the school. Uh but the and there were a lot of really good projects at Morton Springs Middle School. Uh so the competition was tight, but these are for the regional uh science fairs. Second place, Xander Davis from M Springs Middle [Applause] School. You made a light bulb if I remember correctly.
009uh from Pawpaw High School, second place, Lucy [Applause] Carter. Also from Pawpa, second place, Ray Cunningham. [Applause] Uh, third place from Warm Springs Middle School is Grayson [Applause] Beckner. And lastly, third place from Warm Springs Middle School, Joshua Lucas. [Music] [Applause] the high school division. Second place High School, Abigail [Applause] Close. And second place from Paw High School, Justin Smith. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] And if you get first place at the regional, you get to go to states. And so I think uh she's not here tonight, but Emma from Warm Springs Intermediate School got honorable mention. All right, golden horseshoe winners. One of the highlights of the eighth grade years, seventh graders, pay attention history class, uh is the opportunity for a student to become a knight or lady of the golden horseshoe. This prestigious program
010takes its name from the golden horseshoes given to the early explorers of West Virginia. The golden horseshoe became known as a symbol of scholastic achievement to honor students who excel in the study of West Virginia. We had three winners this year. Uh the first is Coral Lee Johnson [Applause] from second is Joshua Lucas. [Applause] and also Payton Sling. [Applause] Yay! [Music] [Applause] Poetry Out Loud is a national contest, a joint project of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation in which high school students memorize and recite poetry for an audience. The competition begins on a statewide level with w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w
011w w w w w w w at each school advancing to the statewide competition. Uh and from Berkeley Springs High School with a top five finished at the state level is Hunter [Applause] [Music] Cook. I'll introduce Laura to come up and present next. Good evening. Um I want to also thank all the staff administration that we see here tonight uh supporting the students. Uh we really appreciate that doing that. And um I wanted to just mention um with all the science fairs, social study fairs, if any of you would like to be a judge, it's really interesting. You do learn a lot. Please contact us at the board office. We'll be happy to arrange for you to help judge these. So tonight, my honor is to um give several awards. The first is to the
012academic showdown championship. The academic showdown is a new academic competition for West Virginia high school students that bring teams together from across the state for regional matchups on college campuses. Competition questions cover literature, math, history, science, geography, fine arts, religion, mythology, social science, philosophy, current events, popular culture, and general knowledge. The West Virginia academic showdown utilizes official national academic quiz tournaments questions for all regional championship matches. The Berkeley Springs High School academic team was third at the state academic showdown out of 16 [Applause] teams. So the team consisted of Haley Bartlett. [Applause] [Music] Hunter's probably still resting from the play was excellent. Um, tell the kids they did an excellent job. It was fun. I came West Virginia Daughters of the American Revolution Award. The Patriots of the American Revolution is a high school essay
013contest that focuses on the men and women who figured in the events of the American Revolution. A patriot may be one of our famous founders or an everyday man, woman, or child who supported the American Revolution in ways both large and small. Students were asked to discuss how their chosen patriot contributed to the founding of the nation. At the state level, essays by one male, one female are selected as state winners. And we have a first place state winner, Berkeley Springs High School, Avon Ambrose. [Applause] Middle School Regional Band, Honor Band, Grayson Beckman. [Applause] Thank you all for coming this evening. Your instrument next year. Remember that. [Applause] The West Virginia Governor's STEM Institute. The West Virginia Governor STEM Institute is a summer program for highly motivated and academically promising students typically entering nth grade
014who have a strong interest in math and science. It's designed to provide students with a challenging and fun learning experience, focusing on advanced topics of mathematics and science. GSI is a community effort offering students an opportunity to meet and interact with peers and south faculty in an academic environment. Grac [Applause] [Music] [Applause] West Virginia's Governor's School for Tourism was launched in the summer of 2024, providing selected 9th and 10th grade students with opportunities to tour West Virginia for 10 days, learning about the tourist ISM and hospitality sectors of our economy through hands-on experiences and introducing a wide variety of career paths in one of the state's fastest growing industries. Students will stay at multiple state park lodges and visit historical and other significant landmarks across Almost Heaven. This exciting experience is being planned as a
015collaboration between the West Virginia Department of Tourism, West Virginia University, and the West Virginia Department of Education. Um, Mary Jane Chills. [Applause] [Music] I'm sure her favorite place in the state was Berkeley Springs. [Applause] Good evening. Um, a lot of familiar faces out out there tonight. um number of parents that I had the privilege of teaching and coaching upon once upon a time and nice to see those kids grow up and I'm not even going to talk about grand so on um my um first thing that we're going to look at is the explore team and manufacturing and the explore team is committed to increasing the number of West Virginia students competing uh career titles uh that support the state's manufacturing industry program offers interactive hands-on programming for West Virginia middle school and high school
016students. Builds awareness and excitement through activities that illustrate manufacturing career pathways and provides a crit critical link between the classroom and industry to strengthen students pursuit of careers in manufacturing. Explorer offers a student video contest for seventh and eighth grade students who are partnered with local manu local manufacturer to create a 3minut video designed to provide a cool snapshot of the manufacturing process and the employees who make it happen. Uh, Warm Springs Middle School administrator Jamie Harris received the 2025 outstanding industry educator. And I might have Mr. Harrison over here to my left. That's what we should [Applause] give. And the Warm Springs Middle School um Eastern Regional winner, the best instate qual. And we have uh Brener [Applause] Anderson, [Applause] Katney, Casey [Applause] Canó, Avery Der [Applause] Ben [Applause] Frank Michael Ka [Applause] Megan
017Pal Megan Pal. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] And now we go to the West Virginia Scholastic Stage Chess Championship. Always like chess, but I'm not any good at it. So maybe you guys can teach me just about anything. Uh Berkeley Springs High School, second place as a team. Brody Boyd. [Applause] Joseph Bman [Applause] John, Elizabeth Kessle, and Riley Sol. [Applause] [Music] And uh in individual rankings uh we had Malcolm John who was sixth [Applause] place and who was seventh place. Great job today. Um and then we have the B Springs High School Chess Tournament. Uh three awards tonight. Elizabeth Castle in first [Applause] place John's in [Applause] second [Applause] third. And uh then we get the athletic awards. A little something I know about. Um, PVL 1600 meter champion from Warm Springs Middle School is Brook Miller.
018And I've got to say something about the Paul Ball High School with at West Virginia State Champion because I was there and I will tell you I think at one point here sorry Brook she knows how to save her energy from the big congratulations. [Applause] I think I think I'd like to mention Mrs. Casey Camp here who had to uh head the track team at times and juggle people and get people to meet some things in the state. had a um graduation on Friday night and one of the athletes graduated, bought a ride down to Charleston, got to bed at 1:30 and then went out the next day and had a tremendous day. So this is all Mrs. Casey. Um I think when they started announcing people from Paul Ball, I think the biggest question
019that was asked was where's Paul? Where you know what's what's with this Paul Ball? By the end of the week, I'll tell you something. They did it. And I'll tell you why they did it. Um, football high school just had an outstanding day. Is Shayla here? Shayla. [Applause] Jayla was the state champion in the long jump and the 300 hurdles. I know that doesn't say here. She was also state runner up in the 110 high. What a [Applause] day. I will also mention that Justin Smith who you saw up here with Mr. night earlier was an all state uh thrower uh in the shot and these the two girls scored 31 points which means out of 2018 the state meet they beat 20 just two of [Applause] [Music] He's more intense. Uh I' I'd like
020to say a few things about Donovan Panel before you were too much. I just had the privilege of knowing him for three years and last year about this time he came to me after graduation and says I want to get serious. Put in a tremendous summer with state runner up in cross country. Only lost to one team was really good and then came out this fall and excuse me this spring very uh dedicated once again. um set a call record the mile second fastest mile county history at saving 426 improved by 6 seconds which is a big improvement in the mile and then he goes into the 800. He's not favored. Um but he ran he he literally ran three. He really did. Uh followed for a while, took the lead late and just kept
021on getting it. uh won a state championship and in the process set a state record for single weight 155.53. So even though he isn't here, maybe he'll catch it on video at some point. So I'd like to give him a [Applause] big he started with [Applause] Wow, that was very impressive. Appreciate all of your work. Any award that was up here tonight requires a whole lot of determination and perseverance is the only word that comes to mind because you have to stick with it if you're going to get better. and every one of you. I appreciate you being here. Appreciate all your work and and also appreciate how you represent Morgan County Schools when you go to places. We have a couple more awards and then we're going to give you an opportunity to go
022because we have some other business to take care of tonight. Um we have a program in our schools that we've had for several years called Capturing Kids Hearts. Capturing kids arts is a program uh that we've had in place at all of our schools and they award what's called national showcase schools and there's only a handful across the country that receive the national showcase school award. So to tell you a little bit about that u it's a school needs to de demonstrate significant improvements in student well-being, academic performance and overall school climate. So how is it measured? It's measured through attendance, discipline referrals, student engagement, and the school must must also demonstrate a strong implementation of the capturing kids arts program by all staff in their school. So, we were fortunate enough to have three
023schools that received this very uh elusive uh national award and I'd like to recognize and have the principles come up please. Paul schools, Miss Casey Camp [Applause] Warm Springs Intermediate School, Miss [Applause] Hub and Warm Springs Middle School, Mr. Harris. [Applause] Also tonight, pleased to recognize one of our staff who was selected by the West Virginia School's athletic coaches. association as the state volleyball coach of the year. So, please welcome Holly Palmer to [Music] [Applause] Okay, as I said before, you are welcome to stay if you'd like, but I know that you probably have some other things. Maybe dinner, have ice cream first and then dinner. That might that might work out well. So, thank you for being here. Again, you're welcome to stay if you like this. Mr. Myers, can we cut this? Won't
024be able to see. It's okay. Now I can see. Thank you. Okay, we'll go ahead and reconvene the meeting. Thank you again everyone that helped put this together and crew been working hard today. Okay, reports and communications. back up. Oh, D. Oh, sorry. That's okay. So, so tonight we bring you the uh presentation of our end of year data. As you remember, we've done the beginning of year, the middle of the year, and tonight is our end of year data that you'll see K through 12. Uh we'll we'll do academic end of year as well as attendance. So, I'll turn it over to Summer and Beth, and thank you for all your work in putting this together. You guys All right. Slide. I'm told I have to tell you when to change the slide. Slide.
025This should be fun. All right. Um, we're going to start with good things like we do all of our meetings and our good things are kind of focused around our major initiatives. So, the first being capturing art. So, we are excited that two of our elementary schools, small media achieve that status. Our next big initiative for next year is going to be letters professional learning for our teachers. And we had a goal to get 25 registered. Um, Our administration's been out for two days and we are already at 25. And then of course our I Ready growth is exciting and we're getting back and I'll pop up here. Um in secondary we also had two national showcase schools high school and middle school. So we're very proud of both of those schools. And another great
026thing for secondary is the instructional empowerment data. um we had a 15% decrease in instruction at the retrieval level which is the lowest um the lowest level of instruction on Marzano's taxonomy. So 15% decrease in that type of instruction and we had a 5% increase in instruction at the highest level which is the knowledge utilization level and we want to celebrate it slide. First, we're going to look at we're going to look at our end of year reading proficiency. So, overall, we have 59% of our students in grades K through five, early on to above grade level in reading. We have 27% approaching, which means they have all of the previous grade standards mastered and maybe a few of the current grade standards. And then below we have 14%. Moving on to math, we are
027looking at 50% proficiency for math, 34% approaching and 16% or below. Looking at our overall growth from beginning of the year to end of the year and reading we had a 37% increase which is on our good things slide and a 38% increase in math. And the good thing to note about that is that our growth is balanced between the two subjects. Some districts will see a larger growth in math or reading vice versa. But here in Morgan County we are consistent in both subjects. Moving on, this is basically the same data, your professorship growth, but it shows it by grade instead of overall. And so as you look across that, you'll see kindergarten had great growth. And then some other things to note is once again you're seeing that balanced growth among the grades
028and they're only off by a few% with the exception of second grade. I guess kindergarten did really well. Are they finding that they're coming in from prek a little more prepared than in the past? I know we had some issues in the past. Yeah, I think that's part of it, but also one thing to note about kindergarten is there are two proficiency levels. So you have one and above and then you have approaching. So kindergarteners do not fall in that category at one level. So you're going to see when we look at our cohort data, you'll see a little dip when we go into first grade. That's because there's another category added. And so some of those students who are approaching and have less of those standards, they're going to dip into that category. Thank
029you. And here is our cohort data. Now that we've been going I for two years, we're able for the first year to be able to show that. And so one thing to keep in mind is they are tested on different standards obviously. And so if you look at that first category of grade one, the navy bar shows where they are currently in the year this year compared to the purple bar as where they were in kindergarten last year at end of year. So you're going to find that reading and math look a little different. So in reading you see more dips than you're going to see in math on the next slide. So the first dip is because that category that I just explained, they have an additional category in first grade that they can
030fall into. The other dip you're going to see is from third to fourth. And that's because reading instruction really changes at that point. They go from learning to crack the code, being able to learn to read to reading to learn. And so sometimes it was a little in fourth grade. And then you can see in fifth grade they start picking that back up because they gain those cognition strategies. And then looking at math cohort data, you're going to see it's very consistent except for that first category for the same reason I mentioned previously. And so data looking at this, how will it impact our decision making and our um instruction? We're going to continue our schoolbased elementary instructional coaches. They help support our teachers instructionally and they also help support professional learning. We're also going
031to continue spring math K5 in all of our elementary schools this year and that helps to build fluency on foundational skills that are crucial for mathematics. At the request of teachers, we're going to continue writing support for our teachers and continue our science and reading and yearbook CTS. Things we're going to start is of course our letters cohort work in August. We have a math academy this Thursday actually with John San Giovani and we have 16 currently registered for that professional learning opportunity later in the month. We are sending some teachers to the prek and the social studies standards roll out and um Becky actually piloted this year at work unpacking the math standards so they can get to know the content that they need to teach what the success criteria might look like for
032that. So we're now going to expand that to Midmire Pleasant View and PA they're working on developing a plan for that. They will turn in later this month and then intermediate school is going to continue that but with ELA moving on to big kids. So my part of the presentation is divided into two sections. Um first we're going to look at the actual benchmark data which was measured through in grades 6 through 10 and then we had a little experiment um with blue book practice test for SAT in grade 11 and then the second part of the presentation is going to be some PSAT data from the fall that the board requested. So looking at the secondary EOI proficiency for grades 6 through 10. This is measured with ISL. Um this was taken in late
033April early May depending on which school. Um above grade 28% on grade 14%. So our proficiency level at that at sixth grade 6 through 10 was 42%. Um below 11 far below 36. We had 11% of students not pinpointed which I consider um a 10% 10% students didn't test. I consider that pretty a pretty good rate. Um, next slide, I believe. Yes. So, this is similar data. It is for the SAT blue book practice test. The blue book practice test, if you'll remember from the fall, um, blue book is the platform where students practice their SAT. So, we did an experiment of trying to collect the data from that test rather than the LL because we're seeing sort of mixed results with how um proficiency scores compare with the SAT scores. So, we wanted to
034try this out. Um this is for ELA in grade 11. Um exceeding college readiness and college ready. Um those two combined were 31%. But actually um I'd like to point out that we should also include the approaching readiness score with that. If we add those three numbers up is 66%. The reason why I like to include approaching readiness um in with the proficiency is because this test was actually given in February. Um there's like a 10 point uh scale score difference between um college ready and approaching readiness. So the we anticipated that those students that fell in that very narrow range would by April be able to move their scores up. So the two different ways to look at that. Next slide. We're going to move on to math. So in math, this is once
035again, which is grades 6 through 10. Um 19% proficiency when we combine 13 and six together. We do have some work to do there as you can see. We'll get a little bit into that more when we divide that out by grade level. Far below. Yes. Far below 50%. Next slide please. Blue book practice test. So these are our 11th graders 11% proficiency in math and 39% if we consider the approaching readiness in that group. This was also given in February. So this slide is going to show you for back to grades 6 through 10 bi and ei for each subject similar slide to what we saw in elementary. We had good growth there. So in ELA we saw a 9% increase and in math a 6% increase. Our students in math at secondary are
036increasing. However, um English seems to be closing that gap. Um students are gaining a lot of skills. You'll see that later on in a in a slide as well. Math is showing growth, but probably not as fast as we want to see it. And then the next slide, Bob, um, is just that same information broken down by grade level. So you'll see the district data as the first set of bars for EOI, MOI, and EOI. And then you'll see each grade level broken down. And I would like to point out that on the map side, go back, blue and gold back. Yes. Thank you. on that slide out of the map with nine and 10. It's not as bad as that looks. We had some kind of issue with completion of those scores where our
03710th graders only 66% of the students completed the test and at nth grade we had a lower completion rate as well. So that sort of skewed the data in a negative way. Really all I have to say about this one. Next, please. Um then the proficiency growth for grade 11. This is back again to our SAT practice. So the three bars here represented um we have reading and writing on the left. Um the first bar is the practice test that we did in September. The middle bar is the actual October PSAT that all of our juniors took. And then the last bar is the February practice test. And I did include in that those numbers those students who were exceeding college readiness, college ready and also approaching. So all of those three areas are included
038in that number once again since the test was taken in February and they still had time to grow. Math you can see similar things September, October, February. little dip on the actual PSAT when they took it in October. So this slide is going to show you our cohort growth for EXL. So in we used it for several years now. I think this is the finish of year three. So we can track that. I tracked it over the last three um windows. grade six you don't really have any comparison because um they're doing I'm ready in grade five. So when they come up to grade six that's their first experience taking a benchmark. Um but you can see that um those the three data points are BOI 2023, EOI 2024 and then EOI 2025. Um you
039can see that those students the average of their scores they're remember those numbers mean like 626 means sixth grade second month. They're not that far below as a group and that's what we like to see. Seventh grade we have uh seen growth for 461 that's fourth grade sixth month up to seventh grade third month. So we're seeing in English we're really seeing that they're um advancing at a faster rate um and catching up closing that gap as you say. So, I'm very pleased with those scores in the cohort. So, you can see like our 10th graders this year, how much they increased over the last three. All right, next. So, this is math. Math is sort of a little more all over the place. You don't once again you don't see as much growth and
040in some cases you see a little dip. So, those will be things that we need to address moving forward. And I'll just stop there for a minute um and see do you have any questions about the benchmark data which were the previous slides secondary benchmark data measured through ISL and SAT blue. I understand approaching readiness. What is emerging? Okay, so the emerging readiness is it's it's interesting because there's like a 700 point scale that they work with in SAT, PSAT. So the other two areas like the low area and the high area, they have like a very wide range of numbers that fit into that category. It's just this little teeny tiny 10 to 20 point margin that they put in the approaching. Um, emerging is going to fall into a much bigger category lower
041that I don't know if that makes sense or not. Any other questions on that part? Okay, let's move on. So board requested some proficiency data comparisons for PSAT. So this was um the first year that we have really decided to give the PSAT in the fall to all juniors. Um we wanted to get them prepared for the SAT. So our juniors this year took not only the SAT recently here in April, they took the PSAT in October. Um not all counties do this. We just decide as a district that we're going to test all of our ninth graders on PSAT, all of our 10th graders on PSAT, and then all of our 11th graders again in October on PSAT, and then they get the SAT um in the springtime. So, what this slide is showing
042you is on the reading writing test of the PSAT, um, it's showing both of those comparisons of the purple bar is those students who met the benchmark and the blue navy blue bar is the met with the approaching benchmark. So, it includes that next group down. Um, and we see comparisons of Morgan County Schools, Berkeley Springs High School, Paula High School, and then you can see how that compares to the state average. Um, just understanding that not every county in West Virginia uses the PSAT. And then the next slide will be the map. Once again, some work to do in [Music] math. Same data, different subject. And then the next slide's going to show growth. On this one, I chose to put the scale score on this slide. I tracked this year's juniors, the ones
043the students who just finished their junior year. I tracked them from their PSAT9 to their PSAT 10 to their fall assessment of the PSAT. And you can see their growth in those areas. And I would say that proficiency in reading and writing at the ninth grade level is considered a 410. In 10th grade, it's considered a 430 and 11th grade at 460. So those numbers slightly increase. It's not the same at each grade level, but it's [Music] considered. And then the next slide will show you the map which once again those bars seem pretty flat. So we're not seeing the growth we'd like to see there. Um I will mention that back on the the the English slide read the first two grades nine and 10. Both of their scores were higher than the state
044or higher than the proficiency level or higher than the state. They were higher than what the proficiency level was in math. We didn't achieve that in any of the grade levels. Proficiency score for grade 9 would be 450. Grade 10 is 480. Grade 11 would be moving on to the last. So one of the um things we're going to continue we're going to continue using ISL for benchmarking in grade 6 through 8. I think we've had three good years with ISL in grades 9 through 11 and it's just not showing us what we need to to do. So, we're going to make a little change there which I'll talk about. Um, we've had a really successful year of pacing and curriculum mapping. Um, shout out to Mr. Dugan. He led our pacing and curriculum mapping.
045Um, it was just a really huge project that he took on and he's done a great job. We'll continue that next. We're going to refine it. So, the hard work has been done at least in the four subjects and we're going to refine that. It's really aligning all of our standards really well across our grade levels. We're going to continue our partnership with instructional empowerment to increase rigor and student agency. I think we're seeing a lot of improvement with that, especially the second semester. I couldn't be more proud of the schools that participated in that and the hard work that the teachers have had to put in to to accomplish the things that they've done this year. Some amazing things they've accomplished which when we can share data next fall we're going to see that
046um and continue focus on standardsbased instruction. That's what's going to make the difference. Um things that we're going to start that are new. We are going to do a new benchmarking tool for grades 9 through 11. It's Horizon Education Progress Learning. We're going to use that in grades 9 through 11. It's a benchmark tool specifically aligned to PSAT 9, 10, and the SAT. So, we're hoping that makes a bit of difference there. I just I haven't felt after even three years of trying that really was giving us a good predictor of how students were going to do on those three tests. Now, um Mr. Harrison and I recently compared the ISL proficiency with our um released data from GSA that we can see and it's pretty close. So, we feel like ESL is doing a
047really good job in 6 through 8, but not so much in 9 through 11, which is why we're going to change that. Um, we're going to add some sessions with ISL professional development. Um, that was part of our contract. They're going to help us create a middle school learning plan that's based on our district initiative so that we're not like just throwing all these things together that they will understand what we're trying to accomplish with instructional empowerment and what our district objectives are and they're going to help us create a specific plan on ISL use at the middle school. And then we're going to add instructional empowerment at P Hall grades 6 through 12, grades 7 through 12. Uh 6 through 12 today is the answer. secondary. Yes. So, that's what we're looking at. Um
048really focusing on math. Mr. Banks and I have been talking about some um ways that we can really help support our math teachers. We have two secondary teachers on theite with literacy communities of practice. So, we're hoping they'll become leaders in that area for our secondary teachers. Some other things in the works too that um will help with that, I hope. And as we see students coming from intermediate to middle school seeing really good results this year as those students get to the high school level before that makes a huge difference. Is that what questions you have? Well, here's my launch. Just I just chose this quote because um we tend to get comfortable. We have to be sort of comfortable with uncomfortableness. Um been thinking about that a lot recently. It's, you know, too
049much discomfort, people just shut down. But um the right amount of discomfort is productive and that's why I choose that. I think that's sort of where we are. We have some areas we need to push a little bit on and we're working on that. So what questions do you have about secondary or back to elementary anything we might have? I'll pull some back up here if I have to. Um I guess I just a general question I remember as a student I was not the most uh gungho about um you know getting the homework done as you remember I don't remember but uh you know when when test taking came around like I always wanted to do as best as I possibly could because I knew like all right test tests matter. Test scores matter.
050Um, and I think, you know, we look at this and it looks like K through five kids are trying their best largely. I would say even through eight, K through eight. Mhm. And then something happens. It see it looks like where I know these kids. I know they're smarter than this. I know like I know several 11th graders that are like they're rock stars but then the test the SAT stuff it doesn't necessarily show that like is there a how do we change that I guess cultural thing well we're trying to with instructional empowerment getting kids more engaged in their learning I think that's a big key and I think we'll continue to see growth at work with springs high school and high school um giving kids ownership of what they're doings also say that
051when you're looking at the ISL scores, one thing Mr. Na and I have talked about continuously is that the practice tool that they're using and using the same tool for practice in benchmarking sort of wears the kids out and they are worn out of by the time they get to nth grade. They just are. So, um hoping that a new tool that they see is more relevant to the test that they're going to take at the end of the year will be helpful in that area. Cross my fingers. I'm really impressed with the product. Um the product that we're going to purchase not only has the benchmarking but has practice towards those tests that built in individualized for each student. I don't know if that answers your question. They're high school kids. We just keep
052trying until we find something that works. [Music] Just a couple comments. really impressed with the growth that we are seeing in grades three through eight. It's not just one grade, it's all grades. Very pleased with instruction um across the board. Um in math at the secondary level, we're making some strides, but we're a long ways away from where we want to be. We are making some growth. Um, I when we were asked to put the PSAT slides in there, I was a little hesitant because I'm one of those people that likes to compare apples to apples. And as Miss Golden said, PSAT, a district can choose to not use it. They can choose just to have the collegebound students do PSAT. And that's often what districts do. So when you compare Morgan County to the
053other districts, please know that we're not comparing apples to apples because if a district just chooses those higher achieving students and they're the only ones taking the PSAT, then their data is going to be skewed. So I I'm a little you know the data comparing the county to the state is going to be a little bit off because we're not comparing apples to apples. Um, with that said, we know that there's a problem with math at the secondary level and um, we are going to fix it. And, um, we feel good about the teachers improving. Uh, as you know, we have a significant number of long-term subs, unfortunately. Um, but I'm impressed with how they're catching on, how they're learning the content, and how they're improving with. So, I do expect our SAT results to
054show growth uh in the end when we get those officially. And I would love to be able to tell you the official results of the GSA right now because I'm excited, but I can't. Uh the preliminary results look amazing. So, I think we have that to look forward to. So, there's no other questions. I just like to thank Summer and Beth for being here tonight and all the work they did bringing the data together. All [Music] right. So, jump in the first slide here. Um, so as you guys know, we've been talking about chronic absenteeism uh since I came back here and um just kind of keep that to keep that word in in the forefront of everything. So what this first slide here shows is every uh school and where we rank county at
055the end of each quarter. So thing that steps out here is the first time we've really kind of put us in a hole to begin with, but again, we're not making excuses for that. We're trying to figure out why. Um, you know, and what we can do to make that better. So this is again just some just some across the years. You can see where we were at. We go to the next slide. Um, this is uh the data that I really like. So 2223 that is our baseline data. 2022 we had co restrictions with uh I think we had sick kids home when it came out and there was just no no rhyme or reason to what the rules were at the time. So but 22 23 really kind of gave us some baseline
056data with uh what where we stand with attendance. So uh as you see those numbers were pretty high back then. We were at 28% as a county. Uh we had a nice little dip last year down to 22. Uh and then this year we kind of went up a little bit to 25 as a count. Um I will say that you know we had elementary school decrease theirs by 7%. Um Whitmer which is always one that follows that national curve. They're always higher um just because a list of reasons. Um and then you have Whitmire did decrease by 1% and uh the intermediate school also decrease by 2%. So I say all that to say that one thing that we are planning to do is I think we've got this term probably absent out to
057uh our communities and schools workers, our admins, our folks that know that we're trained on this. Our next step is getting this out to our classroom teachers and getting them to play a more uh important role when it comes to superintendent. And we know that their lives are easier when their kids are in the room. They don't have to go back and make the appointment the next day. And I think with the growth that we're seeing on the academic side of things, I mean, our attendance is better than where it was, is it great? Absolutely not. Uh, you know, we our goal this year as a county was to be at 15%. Um, you know, we didn't meet that. But I'm not going to here next year make that goal 18%. We're going to keep
058that cooling down because ultimately I'm uber competitive when it comes to things like this and um it's I know we can be better at this. But just some highlights of this I would say that Paul at our their LSIC presentation we recognized Miss Helmet having a 0% product rate at that time. Uh that class actually finished with 0% through 180 days. So all purple class uh never met that threshold. Uh we also had I think four grade levels across the district that beat the goal of 15%. So it's possible um you know Dr. sends out a um chart that compares all grade levels uh at each school every 10 days and we send that out to all admin all whatever you know assistant communities and schools workers secretaries that work for the 10 so they
059know uh something that we started today is on our principal meeting we had that as the forefront on our agenda that's something that we're going to be asking principles do next year at all of their agendas that little chart is right at the So people are seeing that, knowing where we stand, knowing more about that. Um, so you go ahead and go to the next page. So again, that's chronic absenteeism. That's that's, you know, buts and seats and where we kind of stand. Um, the next piece that we're going to look at here is truency. This we're rocking this. the uh you know we our the amount of MBT meetings that we've decreased over the past few years is substantial. Um, I remember going there and sitting there from 9 till 5:00 multiple times a
060year. It is it is a rarity for us to be there past 2:30, 3:00. Um, I mean, a rarity. Um, and so one thing in this is uh, you know, again, this is that truency piece. This is all about notes. If you have notes, you're golden. If you don't have notes, you're not golden. It's very black and white. Um, chronic gasism doesn't care about that. It's if you're there or if you're not there. Um, so as you look here on this, uh, you see Whitmer has a ton of pre-day contacts. Um, the secretary there really jumped on jumped on with us. Uh, and really took it by owners, of course. Um, and you'll notice that there that that number of MPT meetings for Whitmer is the lowest that I've ever seen. Uh, and it's very,
061very low. Um, one thing that I really want to focus on, you know, and a lot of this gets into our tier three, kind of tier two, is I really want to increase our home visits with communities and schools workers. Um, I we we've got away from sending them out with law enforcement. We know that that is never it never sets up the tone for where we want it at. We want us to be seen as helpful, helpful, and supportive. Uh, anytime I've done this meat, I've done this a lot. Anytime you show up in a freezer, the tone is different immediately. So, something that we're trying to do a little better of is getting is getting those folks to schedule those visits with parents, let them know when they're coming, taking other communities and
062schools further with them. Um, and just kind of just give that another another piece of support to some of our parents that just have some barriers in getting their kids to school. So, again, truency, we're looking really well. Um the last the next to last slide is um kind of where we end up this year. Uh this is something that we also want to do a better job of for next year is student recognition. Um we've got to recognize these kids for being here. One of the things that Miss Help her about what she does in her classroom very simple things that are capturing kids heart. You know high five as soon as they come celebrating when they come to the door. simple things that cost nothing. It costs absolutely nothing. Um so we want
063to recognize these students. Perfect attendance is great. You know, uh we have several students that accomplish that. We have a whole ton of students that beat, you know, that that was less than 10 absences for the year. That's and that's we have to recognize those students as well because that's a big feat, especially in today's age. Uh I can tell you I have a seven-year-old and there's going to be times that we're going to miss four or five days of school year just because we're going to a sporting event or we're going through a concert or something of that nature. We know that happens. Um, and I think that in this in today's world, it's just it's part of it and but we have to recognize those students when they when they miss lesson 10,
064especially for a school year. Uh, the last slide here is just an update to give you guys as well as where we stand with these numbers. Um, our total home score enrollment is 48. That has decreased since the beginning of the year. Uh, our hope scholarship has increased since the beginning of the year, which is kind of what we've talked about since hope scholarship came along is that we we will probably more than likely see an increase in hope and a decrease in homeschool. Um, that's just kind of how that's trended. Um but again we've you know we've lo we again with the numbers going from minus 24 to plus 16 a lot of those have just jumped from home over you back and forth. So, but that is where we currently stand attendance-wise and
065any questions. Can you tell me like just because I don't know like what what is involved in the in a home visit? Like what do we do? We try to come up with a plan or a solution to whatever their problem may be if they even share that with you. Yes. The plan, the goal of a home visit is to go that extra mile to show those parents that we want those students in the building. Um, most of the time it's it's generated with we have pamphlets that we give out to parents that has all the all the all the reasons why their students need to be in school. And it's basically just to get our foot in the door and to and to educate our parents more that our students when our students are
066there, they're warm, they're fed, you know, they're they're taken care of while they're with us. And you know, ultimately it, you know, research shows that if you're successful in school, chances of you being successful in the next step is very high. And so, you know, good attendance in school leads to good attendance at work for the most part. And it's just kind of just getting that built in and it's more or less communicating with the parents the importance of that. So that's kind of the goal of it is just to show them that extra mile there. Figure that's what what we would be doing but yeah but home visits can be proactive especially in the younger grades. I see prek teachers in the audience. Those are always helpful. And then uh when attendance issues arise,
067oftentimes the school will reach out and they'll leave a message on an answering machine and nobody will ever call them back. And so they want to make contact uh in a different kind of way rather than just by leaving a voicemail. So they'll make a phone visit and attempt to have a face to face conversation. So which often works better. [Music] All right. Reports and communications. Anyone from the board have anything they'd like to report? I do see there's a survey out for the um fall graduation right now available. about changing the date. A little late in the day to mention it, but I will say that today was National A Day and since we have such a thriving egg program in Morgan County recognize that. The old saying is never never made fun of
068the farmer with the mouth. So, it's probably good keep in mind. Good to know. I do know that Friday is National Donut Day. Of course, you can't make donuts without You can't. [Music] Well, as you know, especially those of you who have children, the students are no longer in school for the year. That Friday was their last day. Staff's last day was yesterday. And been a good year. Um, I want to let you know about the MIP project. Uh, we're going to find out somewhere around June 20th that we've been awarded that project. Later on the agenda, you're going to notice the Woodmire uh HBAC item that we needed to get some additional information and have received it. But, um, we I don't know that I've ever seen this a project come in $2 million
069less than what we anticipated it would. So, unfortunately, we don't get to keep the $2 million. It goes back to the school building authority, but we did find out today that uh our local match uh will be reduced. So, we'll save some money there as well as the contingency uh funds are going up. So, in the end, we'll be much better off financially because of that. But um as far as the two million goes, it goes back to the pot with the SBA and then they determine how we use that money across the state. That's all I have. Public comments. I don't have anybody signed up. Actually, okay. Hi. Hello. My name is Becky Rener. I grew up here. We went to church together and school together. I just moved back. Um, my nephew was
070getting an award tonight, so I thought I would take this opportunity. This isn't a question of comment. This, uh, could be a really good opportunity for the school system. I work for T-Mobile Corporate. Uh, we have a program, Mr. Roland will be most interested in this. Um, it's called T-Mobile Friday Night 5G lights. The program itself is only available to smaller schools, small communities. Um, and what it does is it awards schools uh prize packages of $5,000, $15,000. And if you get the grand prize, it's $2 million to redo your entire spring football field. It also will give you a new scoreboard, probably bleachers. Um, they also have um they will completely redo the workout room in the gymnasium for the athletes. Um, they throw a big party, the whole town's invited. and they have
071music and and food and all sorts of crazy stuff. And if you know the football player Broni shows up, too. So, it's very exciting for the town. Um, the thing is I am unable to enter for you. It has to be a superintendent, a principal or vice principal or a head of a athletic department who enters the program. Um, right now if you go on to the website of the T-Mobile Friday night 5G lights, there is a thing where you can sign up for an email address where it will send you notifications um asking you when to sign up for the program. Um, it's very easy to do and the thing is you fill out information and then the school gets very involved. You create a video of how excited everybody is. Um and uh
072the kids all get involved sharing it on social media gets a lot of attention. Um I just think it's a really good opportunity for the town. I would do it if I had confidence interest in them being able to do it because I do work for them. Um the second one was who was talking about attendance over here. Good. One of my other clients I'm an advertising used to be warpool. Uh they found out that attendance uh especially in poor areas was due to lack of clean clothes. the kids were embarrassed to show up to school or the parents would send them without it. Uh so has a program called World War Counts Laundry Program. I would look that up. What they do is they will provide free washer and dryers to school systems. Um
073they will create a washerdryer room where kids can bring their clothes in uh secretly and their clothes are done for them and delivered at the end of the day and attendance astronomically. Um and it's free. So anyway, those are the two things I was bringing to the table today. Um, auditorium still looks the same. Yep. And I hope you guys if you need any help whatsoever, um, David, you can find me on um, Facebook or something to reach out. I can give you my contact information. I can come in and help you file for these programs. Um, I just can't do reporting. So if you're interested, reach out. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Consent agenda. The superintendent recommends approval of the following consent actions. Minutes of the May 27th, 2025 regular meeting. Payment of bills.
074Budget adjustments volunteers. Second, please. Second. Any questions or concerns? All those in favor? [Music] opposite over on the uh personnel agenda. Um so the first thing there in letter A is we're asking for authorization for the superintendent to accept resignations coach position hire employees pending board approval uh from June from tomorrow until September 2nd. Uh we have a resignation of substitute teacher under service personnel. We have a transfer uh current secretary at River Springs High School is transferring to executive secretary and she is here tonight uh practicing clearly. So, we welcome Miss Taylor. Um, down under summer personnel, we have a summer program teacher or actually um three summer program teachers and then we bring on two summer school teachers here at Berkeley Springs High School. Over on the agenda, these backtoback weeks board meetings.
075Sorry, the agenda is always packed. The agenda is never packed. Um so under the uh professional personnel there we have uh two resignation substitute teachers. Uh we also have a resation from our coordinator curriculum attendance through this year. We already miss him did a lot of work with us this year. So good luck in your next endeavor. Uh we have a transfer from multicategorical special education with autism at Whitmire going to the same multi special education with autism at War Springs Middle School. And then we have and also another bittersweet thing here. So we have uh our current principal at Warner Springs Intermediate School is going to join us at central office as the director of special education student support services. Uh, also this is also bittersweet as Miss Hiles is leaving. Miss Huber is
076leaving intermediate school. Um, but we know that Miss Hiles is going to rock her new job and we know that uh, Miss Huber is going to do a phenomenal job with us for central office and help us across the district. So, thank you to you both. I think all three actually here too. Um, so under employment, Mr. Anyone want to add to that? Are you good? We're good to go. Okay. Um, under employment, we are bringing on library media specialists at Berkeley Springs High School. We're bringing on our rural education coordinator. Um, and then we're bringing on a first grade teacher at Whitmer. And then we're also, uh, this gentleman has a little bit of a drive, so I did not ask him to come up here. He was just up here a few days
077ago. So um but uh we have we bring on a new assistant principal at Berkeley Springs High School starting July 1st. So we were happy with that. Um under service personnel we have resignation for the substitute secretary and substitute clerk. These under number two right there those folks are just people that signed up to sub for us over the summer and different classifications if needed. Um and then under extracurricular we have assisted boys basketball coach and then assistant tennis coach designations. One was the basketball coach at middle school tennis at Berkeley Springs High School and then we have our uh ES in the school year positions that we're filling for this summer as well under summer positions questions. I would just like to take a minute and thank Miss Hiles for her service to Nor
078County Schools. This will be the last meeting that we have before she goes on to be the best BCBA in the world. Does anybody know what BCBA stands for? Board certified behavior analyst, right? Analyst. So, she'll be the best one ever. There's no doubt. I told Miss Hubert uh the other day that when she accepted the job to take over from Miss Hiles that it's a good scenario. You're coming into a department that is wellrun and well managed and meeting all the expectations that uh I would have or the state would have and you're really doing well in special ed in every possible area. And it's not an easy department to run because special ed, as we all know, is a federal program under IDA that has a lot of requirements and and Miss H
079been exceptional at that. So, Miss Huber has she can just kind of walk in and just uh take it on and observe and uh it's not one of those scenarios where you have to come in and make a lot of changes. You can just come in and observe and tweak things as you go. So, Miss Files, thank you for everything you've done for in particular our students, but also our staff since you've been here. And Miss Huber, welcome aboard. Miss Taylor, welcome aboard. She's getting a good feel tonight what Betsy does. Right. See, Betsy was out and she needed two people, Holly and Danell, to come in while Betsy was out. So, and Vicki gets to see that tonight. And of course, Dr. Best of luck to you. We appreciate all you've done for our
080school system. Yes. Thank you everyone. And um the intermediate school has run well. So [Music] that [Music] happening. I need a motion to approve the uh personnel action presented. So move second. Any questions or concerns? All those in favor? Any opposed? All right. Finance and budget. Anybody talk about these or just run through questions? We'll take those. Authorize the superintendent to approve what fiscal year 2025 budgets posted in leas after the June 3rd 2025 board meeting. Copies of the budget revisions will be provided to the board in FY26. So move. I'll second that. Any questions? All those in favor? All right. Authorize the superintendent to approve the payment of bills for July 31st, 2025. schedule of checks written will be provided to the board at the sub meeting. I'll make that motion. And this is
081something that happens every year. Uh all those in favor. Now we're down to C. Approve hiring general contractor Harve Bell Inc. for the HVAC replacement at Goodmire Elementary. School pending post bid paperwork is completed and the contract is for $1,769,000. [Music] Motion any questions, concerns? All those in favor I opposed. All right. Approve Jamie Harris and Beth Golden to attend ACT best practices and innovations conference for CTE administrators on September 24th 26th in St. Louis, Missouri. Funding source is CTE. So move. Thank you. Second. Questions, concerns? Those in favor [Music] program planning approve the following for use as required communication tools for Morgan County schools. All right. So uh we this has been in the works for now. It's been through a whole lot of different groups faculty senate chairpersons principles assistant principles committees and
082the board. And we're ready to uh move ahead with this. Again, Dojo is something we already use pre-K through 5. It is a free app. Schooly we already have in place 6 through 12, but we do pay for that because it's also a learning management system. And then the band app that you heard about last meeting is what we would like to put in place for parent staff student communication for extracurricular events. And if the board would approve this tonight, I'd be sending out a memo to all staff letting them know what the expectations and requirements are for communication. Also realizing that in some circum situations there might be the need for um a teacher or staff member to communicate in a different way if it's outlined in an IEP or a 504 plan especially
083for students who are medically ready. A motion to approve. [Music] I'll second that. I just have one question with the the band app. I mean, there'll still be stuff on Facebook, right? Right. It's not taking place. All right. All those in favor? I have it. Approve Berkeley Springs High School band to attend music in the park in Pigeon Core, Tennessee, June 16th and 18th. 18th. The funding source is Berkeley Springs High School Band. So move. I'll second. Any questions, concerns? How many do you have going? Mr. Myers back there. Mr. Myers, do you know how many are going to make you run all the way? That's okay. Uh, I have 17 shirts going. uh and eight adults included. All adults are right now schooling. And is this a competition or is it just originally? Originally
084we were supposed to perform um but the original date was next week. Unfortunately 4 um has happening next week as well. So our days uh conflicted so I moved it back week. We do not get a new performance date. So, we are going to go to the park. We still get that option, but we are going to go see other bands perform, but we didn't miss out on the performance aspect, which is less things to carry. That's true. All right, we have a motion, a second. All those in favor? I have a good time. Thank you. Be safe. calendar of events. June 11th is retirement celebration at 6 pm at the country end. We have our regular meetings July 1, July 15th, August 5th, and August 19th. Are we going to need anything for last
085minute hires or uh we just talked about that yesterday, but we don't know at this point. In years past, we've had a meeting of first day back for staff. So, right now we think we're going to be okay, but if we need more, we'll let you know that we all make a motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor? [Music] Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody.