Pocahontas County BOE Meeting 04/07/2026 - Part 2 - Regular Meeting

001Make sure everybody knows this is >> do what? >> You need to make sure everybody knows this is just until the election. >> Yeah. Well, well, it is. It's July the 1st. Action. >> July 1st. >> Yeah. The only thing this appointment for is for July the 1st. >> Okay. And we really tried to hold this up and not appoint anybody, but we couldn't by law. >> That's how I got here. >> Say it loud. They can't hear you on TV. >> I care and do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States. I will support the Constitution of the United States >> of America and Constitution of the State of West Virginia. >> of America and the Constitution of the State of West Virginia. >> And that

002I will faithfully >> That I will faithfully >> discharge the duties of the office >> a board of education member >> of county schools >> to the best of my skill and judgment >> to the best of my skills and judgment. >> So help me God. You'll be seated at the end of the table. >> Congratulations. >> And you don't get a break. >> Now, uh >> after the meeting is over, you have to stick around. >> Okay. You'll have paperwork and stuff like that about tomorrow. >> Okay. Second here, the next item on the agenda. And you all welcome to stay or you can go. It's up to you all. Okay. better. >> It's up to you. All right. The second public hearing of discussion on the 20 2026 27 calendar. >> Dr. Holmes.

003>> Hello. This is the second public hearing. So, at this time, it's informal. If anybody has any questions or needs clarification, you can ask. Um, we went through the process. Um, it was an exciting calendar season. I had never actually facilitated it myself before, but I've been part of a committee before. So, I did learn a lot in the process. Our committee was awesome. And I think that um the work that was done prior to releasing the uh calendars for vote, I think in the voting, it showed that we were uh in line with what people wanted. um it was decided to keep the options similar with the more I guess popular things that were wanted um in both calendar and really just kind of tweaked the beginning and end dates so there was not

004a lot of differences in the final two calendars um prior to the vote uh we had three meetings um and also Dr. Williams and I also discussed uh I'm keeping her up to date on what was going on with those meetings. She's actually two of them. So, um there are uh 12 things that had to be considered prior to the meeting that I went over the last time, but I'll run down real quick. Um one, it has to be the school calendar has to be created through the West Virginia school calendar program. This is an online dashboard that facilitators and superintendents have access to. Um, you have to determine your first day of employment, first day of instruction and the first the last day of the first semester. You have to make sure you have

005two prep days, one prior to students coming and one after the instructor. You have to have six what is called outside school environment days and four of those have to be held after the 133rd day of school and those are generally reserved as makeup days for lack of a better explanation. um you have to have um any curriculum development professional learning days in your calendar to meet the numbers requirements. You if you have if you're an equivalent time county, which we are, which means we have all schools have at least 30 minutes more added to their instructional day. That you a lot of room to work with as a board. It gives you room to have cancellations, delays, early dismissals. Um, you have to select your high school graduation date and you have to make

006sure all six faculty senate dates are appropriately scheduled. To be honest, and I said this last time, you can't really go wrong on this now because whoever how it used to be done now, you um once you're in this online program and you're clicking different things, it'll tell you it says fail. So if you have any failures, you can't even complete it. So we um narrowed it down to two options. One with an employee start date of August 12th, the other with an employee start date of August 17th. And then like I said, we would have all of Thanksgiving off. Students would have two weeks off at Christmas. There'll be six days off around Easter break that this time uh we put it out of calendar days, meaning they're more protected from having to be

007made up. And um then the August 12th calendar, the last day for employees was June 9th. And the August 17th calendar, last day for employees was June 14th. We I put this uh for vote up through Microsoft Soft forms. It is connected to employees email accounts. It was only for employees to vote. They didn't have to vote. Um, we had 94 votes which I think I gave you guys all this broke it down into different um, you know, employee status, work location, and then the one that won was options one with the start date of August 12th for employees, August 19th for students with August 17th and 18th being those professional learning days, meaning we earn those through equivalent time. So technically the instructional term starts on August 17th, but the students in grades K

008to 12 will start the 19th. Graduation set for May 28th, 2027. It was very close. Again, I think that means we want put everything in there that people had requested. Um, and I think that's it. If anybody has any questions or any clarifications needed or anything else, this is the one that got the SP. Yes. >> Okay. Perfect. All right. That concludes my presentation. >> So, what what do we got one more time? >> We got one more reading before we vote on it or >> Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that on tonight. Um, so once this is voted on tonight, which is on the agenda, um, it will be submitted to the state department for their final approval by May 1st. We also have to work on our NTI plan, our remote learning plan.

009We just have to tweak a few things there and then we'll submit all of that together. So, it's really not approved until the state says it. >> But we got plenty of time. >> We have, what is today? vote on this. >> It's on down. >> Do you have it with you? >> Yes, it's right here. >> It's in your package. >> Option one. >> Option. >> It's >> the vote was um You want to see what the the vote? >> Option one um had 51 votes and option two had 43. So again, very closed, which I think indicates uh the committee got it right. >> It's right behind the agenda in your pocket. >> Once this is all final approved, then Christie will start working on um putting that on web page. Then prek

010will select and their dates from this and then that'll be another board agenda request for approval on down the road. All right. Thank you. >> Delegations. >> No, >> we don't have any recognitions. None. >> School improvement updates. Attendance report start special education Poconos County Schools at a glance. >> Okay. So, I just want to always bring our focus back to our agenda um and to our goals which are at the top of our agenda. And one of those goals is number four. During the 2526 school year, the number of chronically absent students will decrease by 50 students with no school showing less than a 10% reduction in the number of chronically absent school students at their school. So, uh, every board meeting I give you a report out or I have Miss Dunlap give

011you a report out on attendance, chronically absent attendance. And today she's also added in the average daily attendance, which I'm going to talk about in my personnel um, update. So, for Hillsboro, this exact same day last year, this exact same point in time last year, they had a 25% chronically absentee rate. To date this year, they have a 14.52, which is almost a 10% reduction in the number of chronically absent students. Last year at this time, they had an average daily attendance rate of 92.24. This year, they have an average daily attendance rate at 93.56. Greenbank Elementary Middle School, last year they had a chronically absentee rate of 25.26%. This year, at this time, it's 23%. Last year they had an average daily attendance rate of 95.5. This year it's 92.1. Marles Elementary School last

012year and we are seeing a decrease an increase in some of our schools because of flu season. Um they had a chronically absentee rate of 25.98. Um they have a chronically absentee rate of 27.78. Marlington Middle School, they had a chronically absentee rate last year of 33.58. At this point in the year, they have one of 31.09%. Pocahontas County High School, uh, we still have a tremendous amount of work to do there. Last year at this time, they were 37.28. At this time this year, they're 43.58. Pocahontas County schools last year was 30.54. Right now they're 30.98. The Let me go back up and pick up. Marlington Elementary have an average daily attendance rate last year of 30 90 91.35. This year it's 91.46, which is better. Marlington Middle School was 91.10. This year they're

01391.63, which is also slightly better. Pocahontas County High School at 89.06. Average daily attendance rate. This year it's 89.33. So their average daily attendance rate is better. Uh for the county our average daily attendance rate last year was 90.9. Right now it is 91.36. So average daily attendance rate is important through to three steps of our funding formula. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about that. So just to keep you updated on what our attendance is and where we stand with that. The next thing is that is in your packet that I wanted to go over was special education numbers per school. Greenbank Elementary Middle has 50 special education students and I'm just going to read that off according to their general population. So, uh 50 education students, Hillsboro has 11

014education students. Marlington Elementary has 36. Um, Marlington Middle School has 21 and Pocahontas County High School has 50 special education students. When you look at that proportionally, Greenbake has 198 students. So that means 50 of their 198 students are special education. Hillsboro has approximately 76 students. They have 11 special education students. Marlington Elementary School has about 201. They have 36 special education students. Marlington Middle has 111 students. They have 21 special education students. And Pocahontas County High School has 232 students and they have 50 special education students. That is important to ratios in our school system. Um of our special education students, I decided that it's that it is important that we understand what types of disabilities or exceptionalities we have. We have 13 students in our district with autism, one student with deafness, 10

015students with de developmental delay, two students with emotional disturbance, 19 students with an intellectual disability, one student with an intellectual disability mild, 20 students with other health impaired, 86 students with has a specific learning disability um in our school system. So, if we turn um in your packet over and this went out to the public. So, I just want to talk a little bit about our ratios. Um I've gone back a couple of years, Mr. Goodson. It's in your packet. Um we have 710 students that do not have a disability in our district and 170 that do. Proportionally, that is a high percentage of students that have a disability. Last year we had 770 students and 199 students with a disability. The previous year we had 767 students that did not have a disability, 191.

016And I gave you the five-year trend with our students with disabilities. Um, this trend is important because I've made some proposals in our personnel plan that I want to connect back to this information in looking at. Oh, I see our special ed directors over there. Um, I want to connect back to some changes in our personnel plan that we have to put in place to address the specific needs of our students in our county. Are there any questions on special education or attendance? >> On the attendance, how many how many have we sent uh had did all the paperwork and sent it to the prosecutor to >> I do not know how many we have sent to the prosecutor. I do know that we have several students that are in the YRC over attendance. Um,

017and there is a process for getting them in there. Uh, we have multiple students that are in the SAT process at the school. So, it goes SAT process, SAP process, and then to the prosecuting attorney. I will tell you that I spoke with Miss Bland at the high school. We had 53 students that have been chronically absent and um as of Christmas we had not done any SAP meetings on those students. So I asked Miss Bland to start that process and she had to start the initial SAP process for those students. Um >> what's set? Excuse me. What's SAT? >> It's a student assistance team meeting where the group of teachers get together. they have the peer to in and they discuss the attendance problems and how to mitigate those circumstances and get the students

018to school in time. Um, we also have discussed students that are tardy. Um, and this will not be popular. This is not going to be popular with folks and I understand that. But if you have 15 tardies to school, your driving privilege is going to be revoked. I don't think they should drive anyone. >> So it it it is a way to incentivize you get to drive your car, you get to school on time. So we have to have that responsibility um training for our students. So Miss Bland has started looking at that with Mr. Barlo and we are starting to address driver's permits for students that are chronically tardy to school. It's important you get to school on time just like it's important you get to work on time. It's a work skill. >>

019Absolutely. >> Is it possible to have a chronic absence? Do you have so many days absent, unexcused absence that you lose your care? >> Well, it is actually. No, no, it is not. We can take their driving privileges at the school. >> The state law changed law changed on the other one. Why we have this? But we could take the driving permit from school. >> We can take their driver's permit from Not just they're permit from school, but their ability to ride with other students. So, they have to ride the bus. You probably see it go down even more. >> We have some anomalies in our driving. Um, we we've been working on driving permits. Um, when Miss Blain got there, we we had some protocols and procedures that had not been followed. We're tightening

020up on those. And that includes looking at those driving permits. And uh if you're under 18, you're limited on who should be driving in your car anyway. So, we're starting to tighten up on all those things. Um and I imagine it's going to be it's going to be a hard road for us to re that system in, but we are beginning to rain that in. Well, in the past, they always said, I don't know if this is true or not, that if you were under 18 and a student had drove and you went out there and got in with them without written permission, the county system, if there was a wreck, was actually responsible for that child because they're under our protection. We should have seen you that they were on bus. >> We have

021tightened up all those things. We are working on it. I want to say that uh Ruth Bland is nothing short of a superhero >> in my eyes. >> She's changed the crime. She >> certainly has. >> So there's a lot of there's a lot of things that we are working on. There's a lot of things that need to be done and driving permits with tardiness is our is one of our priorities right now. >> So the reason I bring that up is two reasons. One of them is safety to me. >> Absolutely. >> And the other one is funding. uh if those kids are tardy and stuff, they don't count. We don't get funding. I mean, that there's a whole And I'm saying that because you all you all are here. There's a whole lot

022of stuff that goes on that's behind the scenes that I had no clue whatsoever until I got here. But there's there's reasons for everything. >> And I'm going to go over the funding and the average daily attendance rate tonight when I talk about the seven steps. >> Steal your thumb here. >> No, not at all. >> I can share the thunder. Any any other questions for Dr. Williams? All right. Consent agenda items. Approval of the agenda minutes from March 3rd, 2026 to March 17th, 2026. Payment of bills subject to additions, deletions, or other changes prior to the board meeting. Payment of vendor listing 81,07846. Payment of the PC card 82,93177. March 17, 2026. Employee payroll extra duty pay for March 2026 23,1996 bank reconciliation for February 2026 fund grants budget adjustments and budget transfers and

023supplements subject to add additions, deletions or other changes prior to the board meeting. Do I have a motion? >> Mr. Mcomes made the motion. Do I have a second? >> I second. >> Mr. McNab second. And any questions? >> We need all extra duty. Yeah. >> Okay. We will vote on all of them but the extra duty pay for March 2026. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Let the record show that Mr. McComem has recut recused himself. And we will vote on extra duty pay for March 2026 at 23,1996. All those in favor signify by saying I. Motion carries. I got a question about this. I know we got to pay it, but I got a question about it. How come that extra duty pay is going up and down so

024much? Did I not see that on the last one? We didn't pay very much and I thought we was doing great and now it's back up to 23,000. >> Well, we have our after school um 21st century program. >> Sometimes we have a struggle with having people to work in that program. So, we're hiring and appointing new people at different board meetings and then they're starting the program back up and getting extra duty pay and then they're resigning their position and extra duty pays going back down. >> But is this paid by after school? Is that paid by us or paid by a grant? >> It's paid by that $250,000 21st century grant. So, we want as many people as possible working and tutoring our kids after school. And and in fairness, um we are

025having a difficult time and Miss Hammonds may want to comment on this getting kids to stay after school in some of the locations for our afterchool program. One of the locations that we are struggling with regularly is the high school kids staying after duty after school. >> Yeah. you know, if it's not athletics or be a kids day. Um, trauma club was fairly popular on those days. We probably have about 20 kids, but other days, um, you know, even if kids sign up, a lot of times they just hop on the bus and go home because they don't go home and get on their phone or, you know, watch TV or it's it's very hard to get motivated. >> It's spring, so your numbers was going to drop. I think Green Bank told me they

026had nine now is all they had. >> Yeah, there's there's those wall down like flu season is really about you. We normally have 17. Um but yeah, it's it's getting more diffult more difficult with your kids and you know spring season is probably we have you know land so it's been difficult. We're struggling with the after school program and participation. >> You will in the spring. All the kids want outside and it's pretty weather and you can't. >> Okay. Can we tie a tarny into that? Have to make up the past after school. >> Well, the after school grant really isn't a truncency program diversion program. So that's a disciplinary measure, not a a volunteer measure. Probably not. That's a great idea. >> You're saying it wouldn't be a good idea to do it. >>

027It would not be a good idea. It' be in violation of probably federal federal code. >> Okay. Personnel matters. Do I have a motion? >> Mr. Mcome's made the motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. Mr. McNab seconded. Ollie, what we got? It'll be the back. It'll be number nine. The back >> personnel agenda for April the 7th, 2026. Professional recommendations. Approval of the following mutual agreed to administrative reassignments effective July the 1st, 2026. Philip Anderson from director of special education preschool and student support to director of special education technology safety and student supports. Julie Dunlap from director of child nutrition, attendance assessment and student affairs to director of child nutrition, attendance assessment and student affairs to now include communities in schools and counselors. Stephanie Burns from coordinator of federal programs school improvement textbooks

028and community engagement to coordinator of federal programs school improvement textbooks and community engagement removing the responsibilities of communities and schools. Christy Hammonds from coordinator technology systems specialist to assistant director of technology with an increased supplement of $1,000. Service recommendations are reclassification. Arthur Sharp from a paygrade D as custodian 4 back to a paygrade G for sanitation plant operator effective April the 8th 2026 due to adequate certification. Resignation of Billy Haymon as a substitute custodian effective March the 31st, 2026. Extracurricular recommendations. Resignation of Melissa Taylor as the interim head girls basketball coach at Greenbank Elementary Middle School effective March the 31st, 2026. Resignation of Nebraska Scotchi as athletic director for Marlington Middle School effective March the 27th, 2026. and employment of Pete Monaco as a dollar coach for baseball effective April the 8th, 2026 for the

029remainder of the 2526 athletic season. Any questions? >> No, I don't have anything. All those in favor sign I car. >> Congratulations, Miss Christie. All right. Old business. Discussion or action. Proposed policy reision 2275. Mountaineer challenge academy. Final reading. Discussing action. Proposed policy revision 2340. Field code. Curriculum and other extracurricular county supported trips. Final reading. Discussion and action. Proposed policy revisions 3139.01 suspension. Final reading. D. Discussion action proposed policy revision 4139-01 suspension final reading. E discussion action proposed policy revision 4160.02 physical examination qualifications for bus drivers final reading. Discussion and action proposed policy revision 511 eligibility for of resident non-resident students for enrollment. Final reading discussion and action proposed policy revision 5113.02 O2 school choice options final reading. Reading H. Discussion or action proposed policy revision 5136 personnel electronic devices final reading. Discussion and action

030proposed policy revision 5110 promotion acceleration placement retention. Final reading. J. Discussion and action proposed policy revision 3433 vacation. Second reading. Update on the SBA project submission 2026 MIP grant Marington Middle School roof replacement. Do I have a motion? >> Mr. Mcomes made a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. >> Mr. McNed. Any questions on any of the policies that I just read? Everybody understand what it is? All those in favor signify by saying I. Uh motion carry. >> Mr. President, may I say something about item K? >> About what? >> Item K. >> You can. >> Okay. I just wanted to um we have officially submitted this is a school um board major improvement projects for Marlington Middle School. This is for a roof repair to replace a roof on there. um SBA

031funds that we are requesting is $918,86. We are putting a local fund commitment of $350,000 to this, which makes the total project $1,268,000 uh 100 $268,086. The reason I'm bringing this up is because we were close to getting our major school improvement last year. Um we talked earlier in the year they said bring back one solid project. We were two slots from the bottom. Mr. Gibson, >> I think it's what it was. >> Um so we are very hopeful to get this because there's some pictures there of Marlington Middle School. Um and the roof, we really need a roof um there. So I just wanted to make sure that you know we've submitted projects. We've done a lot of work at the high school that we are spreading the love and we are working on

032our other schools which is a a major a major project for us. >> So where were our matching funds come from our reserve? We have some kind of joke. >> It will come from our unrestricted funds which we have in reserves 17% and then we have the money that's not in reserves that comes from our local tax shares >> unrestricted >> the unrestricted funds and I'm going to talk a little bit about that today. Mr. Gibson, I'm going to do a complete presentation on that. And that money comes from that portion of our budget. Our unrestricted funds, our tax funds, um are those funds that we have discretionary use of. And if you recall at the last meeting, we got our forested our force money, which was around $300,000 that um we hadn't received. So,

033we got that to put in our unrestricted fund balance, too. >> That's all I have. >> Okay. Probably done this policies all these on purpose to me, didn't you? I think it's >> new business. Approval of out of county approval of out of county out of state and overnight field trips. B discussion and re review of Pocahontas County school application for participation non-public school students and host scholarship receipts pre receipts policy discussion possible action Poconus County baseball and softball field parking and restrooms discussion or action approval of calendar one for the 202627 Poconus County school calendar discussion and action application for participation in nonpublic school students and hope scholarships presentation and discussion personal report and realignment Dr. William, superintendent and G is permission to post the following for the personnel realignment 2020627 school year teacher

034Hillsboro Elementary. One teacher of multi-ubject elementary interventionist >> interventionist now B. Hillsboro Elementary School teacher of elementary behavior support K5 C Hill Hillsboro Elementary teacher of multiple category specialist education autism K5 self-contained Morningington Elementary School one teacher of college and career readiness for STEM Ebank Elementary School one part-time coordinator for multi-tered systems of support part-time interventionist K4 F is counselor intermediate for Greenbank Elementary, Poconos County High School, and Hillsboro Elementary School. G graduation coach, Poconos County High School, preferred counseling certificate. H one teacher of support criminal justice law enforcement, AS, criminal justice corrections, AS criminal justice forensic investigations, AS, and dual credit CTE coursework, Poconus County High School. And I is teacher of support practical nursing CAS medical laboratory technician AAS >> labbotomy technician ASSC and medical assistant partway for dual credit CTE coursework Pocahontas

035County High School. Do I have a motion? Move. >> Mr. Mcomes made the motion. Do I have a second? >> I will second it. >> Mr. McNab second. Any questions? >> Yes. the one counselor going into counsel at all of those schools. >> Yes. Right now, Miss Doss is at Pocahontas County High School part-time in Marlington Middle High School part-time. Right now, we have Dana Cutliff who is part-time social worker, part-time counseling counselor. She's at Hillsboro, the high school, and Greenbank. So, the way it's going to work is the counselor will go to Greenbank two days, Pocahontas County High School two days, and Hillsboro Elementary one day with every other week being two days at Hillsboro Elementary. That way, our high school's covered, Greenbank Elementary is covered, all of our schools are covered with counseling

036services in addition to youth health services. So, this is a a new position for council in addition to the ones you mentioned that are already working. >> This Yes, this is a counselor's position that I abolished at the high school and I'm bringing it back to serve the schools in the county and hopefully I'm going to get counselor. >> Good. Thank you. Please, >> Miss Cup and Miss Stalls and the other ones will be allowed to continue to do all the schools. >> Yes, they will. They will be in their schools as well. in all these schools. >> And all these schools. >> Okay. >> Yes. Every school will be covered with counseling. Um the high school hopefully we will have a counselor there five days a week every week. >> That's great. >> If

037if people remember back whenever we abolished these positions, we said we was going to put something else in its place. >> Yes, we have. >> And you're you're seeing it whenever you read this criminal justice. >> Yes. >> Uh you know, we we need a bunch of deputies. >> We do. So that's refer to them, you know, criminal law and stuff. So it's it's changing out what we had hopefully and getting kids into something that they want to go into that the county also needs. >> Yes. >> You know, it's the hospitals and the, you know, nursing homes and the stuff like that. This teaching, this nursing, we've tried that several years and we had a hard time finding a teacher to teach that. Mhm. >> So, you know, I I I truly hope we

038can find somebody to teach nursing at the high school. >> We have two nurses in the room. >> I know. >> I'm internally optimistic. >> So, so, you know, that's a good time to bring this up. Always before they said, "We make too much money. We can't teach." So, now one of you all might be the answer. And to be serious, um I have spoken to some >> um younger nurses that has expressed an interest in a school calendar to serve our schools. So I I am optimistic that we will have um somebody to teach this program. In addition to that, when we did our survey, I was kind of surprised most of our students, we had a lot that chose practical nursing when we surveyed the students, but we had a lot that were

039uh really interested in the medical laboratory technician, which when I worked with the hospital, they said that that was a need, not just in our county, but in the surrounding counties. So, I think we we have a bright future ahead of us. I'm not going to say it's not going to be clunky. I'm not going to say it's going to be perfect. There's all of those things because we are starting something that has dissipated over time and we're trying to bring back great things to our students and our community. And all of these are part of the leveled up program where students will complete their degree prior to graduating their senior year. So, it's an entrylevel position um but entry- level degree, but nonetheless, they walk away from high school job and career ready. >>

040This mark elementary school went teacher of college and career readiness STEM. >> You want to talk about that? >> Well, elementary it just got stood out to me. Well, I got the agenda and looked at the first time I >> Well, we do have college and career readiness uh standards for the disposition of getting ready to enter into careers that the West Virginia Department of Education put out. I think it was in 2018 or 2019. And what that essentially does is starts more career fairs at the elementary level and exposes the students to those 16 career clusters so that they have something they're working towards. It's more about community engagement. It's more about kids having a dream because when young kids don't have dreams, they don't come to school. They don't graduate from high school.

041So, we're trying to start early and grab their attention and have them to aspire to a career. And we need it for planning. One of the things from our special ed intervention that we had was inconsistency in our rules and procedures in our our elementary. And it just so happens I know a elementary teacher that comes to my house every night and stalks me and and I I happen to know a few things about the elementary schedule. So let me tell you about the problem. At the beginning of the year when I first got here and this is no slide on Mr. Anderson. You can chime in on this um and you'll see it in my presentation. Marlington Elementary School has the the the least amount of money spent per pupil. They also have the

042most difficult schedule to implement with two two classes at each grade level. So in order to make their schedule work, I believe Mr. Anderson yellow, please interject. I believe they had some consultants come in last year and work with the elementary schools. Long story short, the students don't have a consistent schedule. If you're in first grade, you don't go to PE the same time every day. You don't go to lunch same time every day. You don't go to recess the same time every day. And everyone knows with young children, routine and procedure is an important part of the learning pathways. You have to have routines and procedures. So, we don't have that. And at the beginning of the year, the schedule was tweaked approximately 20ome times to make it work. So we need additional time

043there to establish these routine and procedures with our young children. And I truly believe it's going to cut down on discipline referrals there. It's probably going to cut down on attendance issues there. It's a proactive way to build capacity within our schools for our teachers and for our students. Tell us about the baseball theme. >> We're not ready for that yet. >> Well, we just read it. It's on there. >> Did I vote on this first? >> Well, you we we read them all, didn't we? >> You didn't vote. >> You want me to just move to the vote baseball field? >> Okay. So, >> we read them all. >> No. Did we read them all? >> Yeah. Before we vote, >> our next presentation is I was approached by a community member, a leader

044in the community league. um and said that Mr. Morgan had uh aspired to do some work on the baseball softball field. So I contacted Mr. Gibson. I contacted Mr. Morgan. We have a 128 youth that participate in our youth league baseball te-ball in our county which is a lot of youth students participating in that and our they use our field. Um, so I was looking at I asked Mr. uh Gibson who would if would would you like to come to the the board and Miss Do Mr. Morgan if uh Mr. McName um I don't even know what's wrong with me. All these meetings today got me was shook up. >> So So anyway, I went and took some pictures. Um and I must say that I was pretty shocked when I went to the field.

045So, I'm going to let Mr. uh Ma >> God help me. Jesus, somebody um talk about what we saw there. >> Why is our mic off? >> Um um talk about what we saw there and and then I'll talk to you a little bit about the end. >> Okay. So, Mr. Gibson, at least I know you're today. Mr. Min, would you like to Mr. McCall's? >> Well, my I start on this >> 5 years before I retired. I went to the county commission and got $10,000 through the hotel motel grant money they gave out to put bathrooms in at the softball field because there's no bathrooms there. We use it for f ed practices there and we have baseball and football games there and as you can see every year we rent port John's and

046at first we didn't even do that and you know when soccer teams practice there they had to go back up the hill to use the bathrooms and I just thought we needed bathrooms and I thought I could build them for $10,000 which I probably could have 15 years ago. But what I found out was if you have a public ser on your grounds, which has its own sewage system, it counts as a public ser, you cannot put in a septic tank. >> So I spent $8,000 of the money running the line from the baseball field to our existing septic tank and we put it out in bids and that was the cheapest bid we got. So now we have a sewage line in the ground. We still no bathrooms. There's water there. There's electricity there.

047And I would just like to see a set of simple bathrooms there for the students. >> This usually comes up every spring about the time we start looking at. Oh, we need we need this now. >> I know as construction teacher I would get quizzed on it usually about March and my schedule was planned. So then it would get dropped and then the next year about March it come back up again. I know Morgan and I talked several times about what we thought it would cost to do when I was teaching instruction and I think that's where some of the you know the funding you asked for came from is our conversations. Um so there is a 2-in line now I guess it goes to the lift station there to >> it field house to

048pump it up to the sewer system. We do have a two-inch grinder pump to put in in a plastic septic tank which we have if it's never been installed. Um I don't know exactly what our financings are for restrooms. There's been different um different different proposals over the years. Uh one was just restroom facility, you know, is inverters. Then one time it was just just one building, one co-ed unisex type restroom. Then we had an idea of having concession stand restrooms combined. Um, and that's sort of it went by wayside. Now we're back to looking at just from trying to put in male female restroom system. This in the background is the sugar shack that they have in the forestry department where they're boiling down maple syrup. So that's the softball field. Girl soft. Yeah.

049Real softball there. >> They had to be in the picture cuz I was there taking a picture. There's >> a lot of thinking going on. Yeah. and baseball field with the the dugouts in the background. That's the homeside dugout in the background there. And those were built by my myself and my class about 1999. So, they're getting some age on them, too. The concession stand. I built it with my class probably about the same time frame. >> Again, with the thinking. >> I said again with the thinking. >> Oh, yeah. >> These are the bleachers. Um, I was kind of shocked when I saw them to be honest. >> Yeah, each year we ended up replacing lumber on those for the seats in the trans. It's time that we need to upgrade. We need to

050have some decent aluminum bleachers there or a different quality piece of lumber for our seats and our treads. This area right here um is an area we do not have parking um down in the field area for people that have disabilities to get down there. So I feel like I feel like we need some sort of parking and the question for the board tonight is what is the goal? park restrooms and a parking lot, upgrading the dugouts, gravel the road down to the field, which I absolutely feel like it has to be done because I drove that road and um it is an ill repair. >> We had a little bit of that road done when we did the parking lots last year, but it was just, you know, whatever you can do with the

051little blue gravel you had to work with. >> I did $5,000 worth probably 12 years ago. >> Okay. And that was something that my experience um new bleachers or repair the bleachers. I feel like we can get new bleachers. Um did some of that. Um infield replenish and the base paths. I feel like those need to be upgraded. Um new base, new home plate, new pitchers mounds. These aren't expensive things. Seating for the outfield, new concession stand. It had no steps. Christy, if we can go back and then general cleanup of the whole area. I mean, I want to be proud when I go to a softball baseball game. I want it to be a place our students are proud to go. I want our parents to be proud, the community. And this isn't our

052best effort. We can do better. >> It's It's been an embarrassment for me for years now. >> What would it cost to fix it? Like >> I mean, I think that's what we need to look at is the price to fix it. Well, that just so happens in your packet, >> one thing leads to another. >> There we go. Get the price here. >> So, in your packet, I have put um a request for a statement of qualifications. Um Mr. Mcomes, uh Mr. Gibson, and myself, we all talked and said we need we need a good price. We need to know what it's going to cost for those things that I listed and we would like to put out a bid for an architectural engineering firm to come and look at it and give us

053uh a variety of options to choose from. I will bring those back before the board um and give you a cost on it, but I think we need to do it right because we can and we do have the money to do it right. and I'll get a budget together and let you know where all the funds are and how much money you have in your coffers, but we can do this for our community and for our students and it needs to be done because every person I've talked to said this needs to be done. So, we need to get our RFP out and you know, we've done the high school and now we need to do this. And this is my own personal T-ball star, Miss Camden Camden Thompson. Um, we went Paul and

054I saw him at his opening home game and as I was watching him out there on his field, I thought virtual engineers are a waste of money there. Got certified space companies that does the same thing. There's only so many ways you can lay a ground out the drainage and make it accessible for anything. So, it might be something you think about trying to say else. Well, what happens when we get uh someone to oversee the project for us, they bid it out and they get lo you can get local people. When we did the board here office here, we had local people do that work. >> We want local people to do the work, >> but it's someone to oversee the process and make sure it's ADA compliant. >> Anytime you do anything board

055education, you got to have an architect. >> Yes, >> that's something that's got to be involved. >> So, let's go back to that presentation and let's talk about what we want on there. What what what what are we willing to look at? Or do we want a price on all of it? What's our priority? >> I think we need a price on all of it. I don't know what the rest of the board thinks, but we probably need a price on all of it and then see what we can afford. >> If we're going to do it, let's do it right. >> Let's do it one time. >> Uh to hear Mr. Gibson say every year about March this comes up, you know, that's when everybody's starting to play baseball, softball and stuff. So, let's

056fix it. Let's see what it cost and see whether we can afford it or not and see if there's any grants out there that might be able to help us too. >> Especially with the handicap stuff. >> Yeah. We we definitely need to be handicap accessible. >> There's probably what maybe three or four parking spots at the bottom of the hill. >> Yeah. >> Where they let you know people they're going down if they need to. Handicap accessible. >> I pay attention to that stuff now. Oh, >> I'm sure. Well, >> I would like to see what it would look like if we fixed it. >> So, you know, it's something if we got kids involved in this, >> you know, community league. That's that's >> let's let's fix it. And they talked to me

057last year about community league. There's a strong group of parents. That's what takes it to build a community that will feed into the high school baseball >> cuz we have a strong we have a strong feed pro feeding program for this and uh we need to nurture those interests. the time and stuff. >> Soccer soccer uses it too. The forestry uses it would use it if we had it available. >> One time we had football practice over one time. >> The freshman practice there. >> Yeah. >> Well, it's a new leaf. I'm a new superintendent and this is the first time I've been contacted and um we're going to work on it. I just wanted to get the board's permission before I ran out there and started working here in a minute. >> Okay. Thank

058you very much. Any other questions or any questions on what we just went over? C >> answer me one question for the state per state code and numbers of uh counselors. How many counselors do we have to have in this county for the number of students? >> I'm going to go over that in a personnel presentation. I'm going to cover everything for you. >> You are on the ball. >> All those in favor. >> I got a second. >> Oh, okay. You got a question? to put this out to the public for bid or discussion or whatever. >> I'm going to do it and it's going to go in the newspaper. I already got it prepared. I got it all ready today. Mr. Gibson and I sent it over to him and he said, "Boy,

059you're on fire. >> You can't get ahead of it. >> What are you asking for?" I'm asking for a restroom facility >> without the concession stand attached. >> Yes, because they have two concession stands there. Uh the one concession stand has recently been installed and Mr. Gibson, you or Morgan, Mr. Nolmes, would you like to talk about the steps for that? And just I feel like it's a safety issue. We got some block. You want to say something about it? >> They have sender blocks laying there that you stick up on to place your order. If you're wondering when >> I think we need to fix it. >> I don't think it's hand, >> but I think I think that's still probably a work in progress, but I haven't talked to anyone about >> No,

060>> I like I like the setup they got down here to deal with. >> It's not as good. >> They got the concession. >> So, Mr. Gibson do that since he's in that position. >> Well, if we put it out for bid and a clerk for works is available and in our bid, then I strongly feel we should have it. There's a lot of paperwork that goes on with that and uh you have to visit the job site every day and Mr. Gibson and I spent a lot of time at the gym. We've probably spent morning and afternoon there some days. >> Oh, there many nights. >> Yeah, many nights. >> After hours. >> So, it's it and we're still working on our high school project. We're still under the electrical upgrades visiting there and

061and dealing with issues. Sure. So, um, it'll depend on how the bid goes. >> Any anybody >> Well, I got something. You know, we have a lot of needs coming up. As much as I want a baseball new baseball facility, we also have um coming on the horizon that community and schools getting ready to programs getting ready to tank and we'll pick up the funding on that if we decide to. And we have a lot of things coming down the pipe. I've got all that in the personnel agenda updated for you and I will tell you how all that's gonna be covered. Mr. Gibson. >> All right. >> Just get there. If we could just get there and I've got it for you. >> What I'm hoping that what I'm hoping we're going to vote

062on with this baseball is that a cost analysis and a budget. >> Correct. >> Back. >> Okay. We we don't we're not agreeing to do this, but we're we're going to look at what it will cost and get a plan. >> That's correct. >> That's what we're voting on. All right. So, you know that that's a lot better. I like that. >> I will bring you a plan and you will look at it and say yay or no. >> All right. So, you know, we got a lot. Everybody ready to vote on this? >> All those in favor signify by saying I. I. >> Motion carries. >> But I have to do the personnel presentation. >> Well, that's super. Where's it at? >> It's right there. >> We'll do it. >> Okay. >> Do the

063super do the personnel thing. >> Okay. Wayne, I don't know how you stand it, but >> you're an angel. >> Mr. Williams, >> our mugs is dead, so we can talk. >> Mr. Mr. Williams is lucky to have me. Um, so um, thank you for this opportunity to present the personnel plan for the 2627 school year for Pokemon school. >> Let's go. Your hair is no separate. We don't have any mics. Go ahead. >> Okay. >> So, sticking with our theme, stronger together, um the goals of this presentation is provide an overview of the West Virginia public school support plan. It's called the PSSP when you read about it online. Outline West Virginia code for staffing of schools and requirements of staffing in our school system. Present an alignment plan for program offerings and needs

064by school in our county. So I do like to start off everything with looking at state code roles and responsibilities and make sure that we are aligning our practices with what we have to do. So, West Virginia code 18-4-10 identifies the county superintendent as the chief executive officer of the board of education. Holds responsibility for the general supervision of all schools. Recommends personnel actions including hiring, assignments, transfers, and dismissal to the board of education. The board of education um under code 18-5-1 establishes the county board of education as a governing body over those decisions, requires the board to act on the superintendent's recommendations for personnel decisions and specifies that most staffing actions must be based on the superintendent's for formal recommendation. So, a staff authority structure, the superintendent makes recommendations regarding staffing decisions, which I'm

065going to make tonight. Uh, the county board of education approves or rejects those staffing decisions and has a right to question those staffing decisions and I for me to justify those decisions that I'm making as we had that conversation tonight. And final employ employment action of all staff requires uh it originates with the superintendent but it resting the county board of education. So final consideration staffing decisions must comply with state code including seniority certification and assignment requirements and decisions must align with the county needs enrollment and the funding formula. We talk about all those things but I really want to drill down into those things and what they mean. So, an overview of what the public support plan, it was in the legislative session a lot this year. They kept talking about the public support

066plan. They talked about funding. They talked about realigning funding and they talked about changing funding. And I don't think a lot of people understands funding. So, this is for the public as well as the board to make sure we're all on the same page. So funding supports um professional personnel salaries, employment benefits, transportation, and general operation of the school system. The plan also provides targeted funding for key areas such as instructional improvements, technology integration, advanced coursework opportunities, and professional development initiatives that align with our county strategic plan. Allocations are determined determined based on a couple of factors. Student enrollment is important. District characterist characteristics such as how many pupils you have per square mile in the county and Pocahontas has the lowest amount in the state of West Virginia. The lowest amount of pupils per

067square mile. It is less than five which allows us to be funded at a higher rate because of our transportation cost and the need to have smaller schools. identify systems of needs and then our average daily attendance plays an important role in our funding formula. So how many kids are coming to school on a day daily on the average rate figures into that funding formula. So I pulled the steps from uh the past several years each of the steps and what they mean. Um, so I kind of aligned this. So step one is professional educators and this includes principles and assistant principles. And you can see what our funding was in 2324 and what our funding is in 2627. We have a slight increase in our 2627 over the years, but a decrease from the

068two previous years. Um, step two is what our service personnel and I'm going to talk about service personnel ratios and what that means. Step three is our fixed charges. Technically, you call this load. This is your OHAB, your social security, your benefits. So, that's what we're talking about when we talk about step three. Step four is the total for transportation. This includes bus repair, mileage, bus replacement. Um, step five is professional student support which includes nurses and counselors. Step six is an allowance for substitute cost and I have planned on having this total in here for you today because we are allotted a certain amount for substitute cost and we always exceed that um by a large number. So staff attendance is also of critical importance to our school system. Step seven is instructional improvements,

069textbooks, AP course training and uh support for that uh professional development induction for the teachers and teachers and leaders in our county. That's called step 7D. Step eight is the total basic aid that the county qualifies for. Subtract step n which is our local shares. And the reason this is important right now is because we just established levy rates two meetings ago. Next meeting we will see what our levy rates will be. So these numbers are preliminary projected numbers based on the taxes that will be collected and then when we have our second month report these numbers will become final. So, our projected state aid in step 10 is $6,978,79 projected. Now, here's here's the caveat of what was discussed. Our funding has historically been based on the 1400 floor. That was discussed in the

070legislative session of lowering that 1400 floor to,200. It did not happen. So therefore I did not make riffs and transfer at first because our funding remains secure for next year. Next year there will probably be few riffs and transfers based on our second month report. And here's why. Because in this year by September 7th we set the certified list and then our second month report goes in and that sets funding for the next year. So your funding always runs a year behind. And these funding numbers comes from the previous year. This this year that we established at the beginning of the year. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. >> So if we look at this, we can see that there's some areas that we have slightly more money and we have slightly less money. The

071reason for that slight differentiation even though we had a loss of 60 students, we had 893 students la this year but last year and this year we have 833. that accounts for changes in salary, the increase in years of experience, getting more money in those essences, not because we got more students, but because it's going to cost more to pay our employees. For example, our professional employees are going to get an average of a 3% pay increase. So, we're going to have to be a lot more money for that. So within the West Virginia public support plan, average daily attendance is used in specific funding components, not in the entire formula. So which ones is it used in? It's used in the transportation funding step two. It's used in current expenses and operations step four.

072It's used in professional student support personnel part of step one. Adjustments are given to each county based on sparsity and density. Um, Pocahontas has less than five students per square mile. So, the number of professional educators funded based on a ratio per 1,000 students is adjusted. We get funded at the highest ratio of 72.5 per 1,000 students where a highly populated county only gets funded at 72.30. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, we're getting the most possible funding with through the 1400 student floor and with the ratio because of our sparsity. So, step one, sparity can increase funding allocations for teaching PH positions recognizing smaller classes and multi-grade assignments. Um, step two or lower density counties receive higher transportation funding per student due to the longer

073bus routes and the higher cost of those bus routes. Uh, other steps, certain special positions such as guidance counselors and nurses may also receive a waiting adjustment based on sparity in the county. So, I went and pulled our per pupil allocation by school from the West Virginia Department of Education. and it's on our bound scorecard. I've reviewed that with you at the beginning of the year and you can find every year. I just pulled last year's because this is last year's numbers is based on that. So, Hillsboro Elementary, our per total per pupil expenditure is $25,379.66. Greenbank Elementary Middle School per pupil expenditure is $21,579.83. Marlington Elementary per pupil expenditure $19,532.70 Marlington Middle $19,260.97 focuses county high school $19,45167 total district on average per pupil expenditure is $2045423 so that is what we looked at

074for the last recorded year this year will be the Next will come out when we do accountability the next time. So absolute personnel requirements. Mr. McNav, I went back and pulled the code for each section. Full-time principles for each school with a net enrollment that equals equals or exceeds 170 students. In West Virginia code, you do not have to have a full-time principal under 18A-2-9 unless you have at least 170 students. Um, Dr. Hollingsworth, who I spent uh quite a bit of time visiting with, and I will miss her. I welcome Miss McCoy to the board. Um, talked to me about u when we would travel to training sessions about how she was principal of two schools at one point in time. um and I believe it was Marley Middle School and Hillsboro Elementary School.

075So if you look at those schools two schools combined, we barely have enough student for each of those schools to have a full-time principal. And then if you look at all of our other schools, they barely have enough students that they are just over that 170 enrollment benchmark to have a full-time principal. So assistant principles are a luxury that we are enjoying in our school system and that is a staffing outside of the regulation is the reason I'm telling you that at least one full-time school counselor 8 August the 1st 2025 two school counselors for each 1,000 students provided that this requirement may not be construed to increase the number of eligible professional students to supports personnel positions to each 1,000 students in that enrollment. That's West Virginia code 18-5-18B. So, it's one counselor per

0761,000 students. Now, there's other provisions in there that says may. You may have a counselor if you have over 400 students. You may have a counselor if you have over 300 students, but it's may not shall. >> It's not shallow and it should not put you out of your funding formula. However, I do recognize that we need counseling positions and I said I would bring those positions back and I am doing so as I promise. A full-time nurse for every for each 1500 K through 7th grade students. One nurse and that is West Virginia Code 18-5-22. A full-time attendance director encounters the students with a population of more than 4,000. A school nutrition nutrition uh child nutrition food service director is strongly recommended in board policy 4321.1. A sufficient number of classroom teachers to meet

077the minimum student teacher ratio for K6 and that's defined in code 18-5-18A. And I'm going to clarify what those numbers are exactly to the board. Um a sufficient number of professional and service personnel to meet the requirements of IEPs. Again, that's defined in West Virginia Board policy 24/19. Required and discretionary positions are typically combined into local staffing formula that is followed in allocating professional and service staff to each school and other work sites. So, we use this formula for our funding. And I'm going to talk a little bit about our funding and what that looks like. So staffing requirements in policy 2510 for every prek classroom and teacher you have regardless of if you have 20 students or not you have to have a teacher in an aid. So if you have four students you

078have to have a teacher in an aid. That's aboutund about 1870 $180,000. If you have more than 20 students, then you have to establish another classroom teacher in a um kindergarten you have to have one EPAD is required for the enrollment of more than 10 students. If you have 20 students, the enrollment is a full class. You can have three additional students in a class of 20 for 23 as long as you compensate the teacher and an aid. Um, one cat a pair professional or interventionist is required for enrollment for more than 12 students in grades K um 1 through three with three additional with the teacher compensated at 28. So you can have up to 28. So this is the years that went into law. For first grade it was 2324. For second grade

079it was 2425. And last year in third grade it was 2526 which is this school year. Fourth and fifth grade for fourth through sixth grade 25 students. You can have up to three more students for 28 students as long as you compensate the teacher for each of those three additional students on a daily rate. Fifth grade can be included with the middle school programming as long as there's a middle school in the school or they're in a middle school. A lot of people don't know that middle school is 5'8. It's a 58 program. So you can include that 25 for those classes with an additional three. You can have 28 as long as you compensate the teacher for those additional three students unless they're in the middle school programming and they are rotating through those

080courseworkers. It will be highly unusual and I know Mr. Williams is sitting in the room and he c he had regular classes that were 30 or over on occasion but it rarely happens. Now let's talk about our high school requirements. We are now in the stage where instead of having 22 requirements for graduation you have to have 23. 10 are prescribed. That means these are have to take courses to graduate and 10 are personalized which are selected courses by the students of their interest. And then this this I want to divide out exactly what those look like for you. ELA you have to have four credits. Three are prescribed for 9th, 10th, and 11th and one additional personalized credit of the course options. So for example, your 9th, 10th, and 11th grade English course are

081the ones you have to take and you have to pass to graduate. But you could have a yearbook course. That's a personalized course. You could have you could have a journalism course. You could have a fundamentals of speech course. Those courses all count for high school graduation and they also count towards college entrance for certain careers. Math four credits, two are prescribed. Everybody either has to have algebra 1 and math one or geometry or math 2. All of our students have to take those. And two additional personalized math credits from course options. And I believe computer science will count as a personalized math credit that you could take. for example. So, um, and this year I have worked with the high school. We I have met with the high school on a regular basis. I

082have met with Miss Bland. I've met with Miss Wagner. I've spent no less than two days a week driving to the high school to meet with them at 7:15 at the beginning of the year. Now, at least one day a week driving to the high school to meet with the high school teachers. Mr. Anderson is in tow many of those days and Miss Dunlap and um they get up like troopers and ride with me early and almost run out of gas a couple of times but we stopped and put it in. Um but nonetheless we're moving back to the traditional math pathway which will be college algebra algebra 1 college algebra geometry algebra 2. Um for a couple of reasons with our dual credit courses college algebra is what is taught. We are also struggling

083with students that are moving into our system where they do not have the math 1, math 2 credits and having graduation requirements met for those students. So it is a studentfriendly thing that we are doing. Social studies four credits three prescribed and I outline what those credits could possibly be there. world studies or an AP social studies course, United States history, US history comprehensive or AP US history civics includes personal finance or AP government. So there's a variety of things that you can use for your social studies required coursework. Personal finance is now a required credit to graduate and that started with a 2425 co freshman cohort. So, we really have to dig into that this year and make sure that our students are getting access to that and make sure that that's being taught

084to every student that's rolling through our high school health one prescribed credit um that is required. One of the things that I would like to look at in our scheduling is adding an advanced PE course. And here is why. in working with the sheriff's office. Um, part of the reason that we are five deputies short, part of the reason that our state police is also short is trooper short is because students cannot pass the physical exam. They can't do push-ups, they can't run the mouth, they can't do pull-ups. So, if we're adding our criminal justice course, we need to add an advanced PE course to get our students in shape so that they can actually pursue those careers that they want to pursue. Arts, one personalized credit courses are required to be offered. Four sequential

085courses in music, both coral or instrumental, uh visual arts, uh general art and or studio art, dance and theater. So those are some of the things, but we have to have consistent consecutive courses like band one, band two, guitar one, guitar two. You get the gist of it. You have to have four of those that are consecutive in order for students to master that portion of the arts. So these are required to be offered. What that means is we put it in the schedule, but students don't have to take it. So, driver's ed a course required to be offered one course in driver's education must be offered as an elective to students. Advisory system required through a comprehensive school counseling program and we have to have meaningful personalized learning. So, we have to have that

086in our schedule. World language courses required to be offered three levels of one world language and I think the levels here in Pocahontas County is actually Spanish. That's the one we are working on. Computer science is required to be offered. Every kid needs to have an opportunity to take one computer science course. Career and technical education. We have some requirements for that. We have to offer one CTE course that teaches parenting skills. I'm not real sure I'm not sure that we had that in our schedule last year, but that is a requirement that that is Chrissy shaking her head. No, she got us. Um that's required in policy 2510. personalized education plan, you have to have four credits. Four credits in a CTE program of study or four credits that lead to a postsecary goal.

087We're looking for industry credentials. We're looking for completers where you're looking for students to go 1 2 3 4 get something, go out and go into the governor's workforce. So that's required for CTE. So this was the interesting thing. We have a lot of courses in our schedule right now that are local courses. And this was actually discovered by Miss Doss. They count for local graduation, but they're not counting for arts. Should you choose to go to college at a later uh technical college or or a 4-year college, they're not counting for anything. I call those deadend courses. And here's why they're dead end. because all of these courses and you have the course code out there. These are arts courses that are also CTE elective courses that build a strong foundation in CTE. So

088all of these are things that we should be offering to our students for electives to be a more robust rigorous curriculum to get students college or career ready. So what are those courses? The fundamentals of illustration. The fundamentals of graphic design. Illustration. Graphic design applications. Ornamental metal work. Design imaging and multimedia. Masking techniques. Flora culture. Digital photography. Millwork. Cabinet making information management web development. And there's many more courses that we can offer our students that we really need to look at our CTE program and say, is it robust enough? Is it doing what it should do for our students and our personnel? So, career and technical education. This is something that I have spoken with Miss Donap about and we are sending our teachers to training on this and it's going to be this month

089that they go to training. It's actually required by the West Virginia Department of Education. It is a requirement that we have similated workplace that each of our career pathways is operating as a small business. So when I went to the sugar shack and I saw the maple syrup, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is so great. We could have a business. We can like put labels on this and sell all over the country and become famous for our maple syrup." And we don't we don't sell it. Oh, >> but we can. And we probably are going to because I'm super excited about this maple syrup baking business. So, I was telling my husband, I want to make some maple syrup. I'm just so into this. So, we um Sorry, you guys. I really am into

090this maple syrup thing. Um so, the CTE program is aligned with and approved. We have 16 career clusters and this is defined in policy 2520.13. Each CTE program of study shall, this is what the law says. It says, shall provide students a similated workplace environment and the opportunity to obtain an industry recognized credential. Shall that means we have to do what we are not doing. And I don't think it's that the teachers don't want to. I think they're going to be excited. I've talked to them about this. as part of the instructional program when applicable. Students in grades 9 and 10 must have access to at least one CTE course. We are read right now for on track to graduate. That what does that mean? That means that a majority of our 11th graders, a

091large portion of our 11th graders have not passed two Englishes, two science, two social studies, and two math. At the semester, there were 53 students that were in credit jeopardy. So, we have to do better. And that means that we are focusing on getting our kids over that hump in the fundamentals in 9th and 10th grade, getting them in those CTE electives so that they can start planning their 11th and 12th grade year and get their industry credentials and be completers. Um, students in grades 11 and 12 must have access to four units of CTE program of study and two CTE electives. That's when the rubber meets the road. When we are in 12th grade, we should either be getting some sort of associates degree or some sort of blue collar worker degree. We should

092be getting our CTE degrees out there. Our uh son-in-law, he is he works on Storm. He's a diesel mechanic. He makes an absolutely wonderful living contract services. So, there are jobs out there. We just have to get our students ready for those jobs and our course offerings. So, grades 9 through and alternate means to earn high school credits. We have our AP course work. And the AP course work just simply means that you take a course, you take an AP test and you take an exam, right? and you get college credit for that exam and you get to graduate from school. Our son graduated college in three years. Um we wanted him to go for a hundred years and be a pharmacist but he changed his mind and we got over it. Um he now

093works at FCI Gilmer and lost his job. inner um I can't remember the acronym for this but AV courses or international bular bachelor area uh courses AP AC courses and dual college credit courses. I'm working on the dual college credit courses. I'm working on the leveled up program of getting our kids a degree because Pocahontas County and I've said this many times. Yes, we're geographical isolated, but we want to our kids to get degrees, work in our community, have babies in our community, grow our community, put them in our schools and grow our school system. So, how better to do that than to collaborate with the community and have kids that are ready to go out and work here without leaving? So, Pocahontas County, where are we? What's going on with Pocahontas County schools and

094personnel? So, Pocahontas County is, let me give you the heading. These are um projected computations for personnel funding. And this is looking at where we are right now. So, if you look for professional student support and remember that's counselors, nurses, and communities and schools, >> community, >> we can count them in that part of our funding formula. If you look over here, we were funded for 6.93. We had 5.63 on staff. So, we were under 1.3. So, in our certified list, we funded half of our communities and schools salary this year, all of our funding formula because they count as emotional support specialists in attendance. So, you don't need to worry about that. that is taken care of. >> No longer paid for through a grant. >> That grant is being um rolled back. >>

095That was First Lady Justice's grant. >> So now we have to find ways to fund those in our funding formula. So when I was looking at counseling positions, I was looking at positions that had been unfilled for a long period of time and how do we utilize that money and still get reimburseed for it by providing our student services. So that's really what we looked at our communities and schools. One is funded out of title one and they're funded out of title one because you can allocate money in title one 50% of their salary for attendance and then the other two are funded 50% of their salary out of our supplement for professional support personnel and the grant still covers the 50% of the other three salaries. So for professional educators we were funded for

096106 100.68 68. We have 94.86 on staff. That meant we had a little bit of wiggle room there of 5.82 for service personnel. So, we're not over, we're under for service personnel. We were funded for 76.87. We have 84.42. So, we're 7.55 over in service personnel. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about why some of that is down here at the bottom. I've broken down what part of our service personnel is paid for out of state aid. When you see that on the the payroll every week, where's that funding code come from? What does that mean? So state aid, we get funded for 179.49, which is 8,53866 8,538,663.32. The state gives us money for those employees. We get two state grants, which is looking at our CIS. It's also helping with

097preschool and it's helping with some special education services. And I've broken that down for you in the funding formula. We get federal programs. We fund nine positions out of f 9.1 positions out of federal programs. And we have four county funded programs. Some program some positions cannot be funded through any other source than through your county funding. My position is one of those positions. You have to fund my job or not have me. You have to fund your chief school business officer's job. She is not funded. The transportation director, sorry about this, Mr. Gibson, his job is not funded. It is an unfunded job and a personnel director's job. So >> those these are these are things that the state doesn't fund us for but you have to have because you have funding sources that

098goes along with those. So salaries I just kind of covered that there but there are ways when you looked at your mutual agreements for realignment with the exception of my position Sarah's position and Mr. Gibson's position. I realigned those funding positions to blend funding streams so that the county coffers aren't paying for all those salaries. Some of those salaries are paid for out of weather funds. So what are our federally funded salaries in the county that we get from various types of of funding streams? Special ed, prek, title one, title two, title four, title five. You don't need to know what all those are. You just need to come from the government. So part of the special education director salary is from a federal stream. 50% I believe exact is what is funded. The prek

099director was 25% that used to be Mr. Anderson and he was 75%. But I've moved that over to the personnel director. So part of their salary will be picked up with a federal funding stream. Title one teachers. We have a Marlington Elementary, a full-time title one teacher, Greenbank Elementary, middle school, uh, a title to one teacher, Marlington Elementary, one full-time, Greenbank, um, elementary, middle, a half time, and a half time. No, that's incorrect. We have two and a half positions. A full-time at Greenbank, a full-time at Marsen Elementary, and a halfime at Hillsboro. We have three part-time interventionists, which were not filled. Not filled. Those positions posted, posted, posted, posted. Nobody wait. No, nobody took the jobs. They're hourly paid positions. A coordinator of federal programs. That is what Miss Stephanie Burns is. Most of

100her salary is funded out of that. However, a portion of her salary has to come out of state and local funds because she does textbooks. Uh, a math instructional coach, a part-time math instructional coach is federally funded. The assistant principal at Green Elementary Middle School was 100% federally funded and that grant ended when they came off of school improvement. So they do not have those funds anymore. Special education salary for an aid at Greenbank Elementary Middle School, a half-time salary for an aid at Greenbank Elementary Middle School, salary for an aid at Pocahontas County High School, salary for an aid at Marlington Middle School, and a half pre-time aid at Greenbank Elementary Middle School. Those are all positions that's not in that other funding formula because they're in the federally they're in the federal stream

101of funding. So positions and federal funding allocations again just went down through all those broke them down but I wanted you to see comprehensively on one page all the positions that are f uh funded out of federal streaming. So, what do the numbers mean for personnel? Professional personnel. We are currently 5.82 positions under our allocation. To better align staffing with programmatic needs, which we looked at tonight, I abolished eight unfilled positions. All those positions had not been filled. It wasn't jobs. It wasn't people. You can't think about it like that. It was positions that our students were not benefiting from, which gave us 13.82 82 positions to realign our programs with the additional days associated with 240 and 261 day contracts. This is from Mr. Gibson. He's asked about this um equals 4.2 positions. Okay,

102so that's we are covered because we were under. So those positions aren't coming out of county coffers. they are actually taken up in us keeping our funding level down and not adding new positions. So, we're not losing money out of our unrestricted funds. After um accounting for these extra days, the net positions that we had to work with was 9.80 positions. The base cost for a teacher, I believe the base salary is about $38,000. The load is about $38,000. So, we're looking at approximately $80,000 for a new teacher. We talk about fixed cost and we talk about the base salary. Now, not everybody comes in with zero years of experience. You might get somebody that has 40 25 years of experience. 25 No. So, I'm just teasing. Uh 25 years of experience. So, this compared

103for service personnel, we are over 7.55 positions. Our service personnel, including our head custodians, our county office secretaries, our maintenance workers are all classified as 261-day employees. When you see funding sources, it's for 200 days. Every day over 200 days, you have to pay for from somewhere. That has to come out of a budget somewhere. So, I called the state department, the West Virginia Department of Education. I said, "How many positions does this equate? We're over 7.55. How many positions could we cut to get down to where we need? Well, it turns out 5.42 of those 7.55 over is just in extra days that we give employees. It's in our extra custodian days. It's in our extra days here. It's in our 240day contract. So, you can't cut positions. You have to cut days to

104change that number. So that resulted in us just being 2.33 positions over. Now I want to mention I told you how many nurses we need. We have four nurses in the county. Now all of obviously 2.13 and 3.0 don't equate to the n same number. Some of that nurses salary is paid out of a state aid salary somewhere else that we're picking up part of that cost. But that if we had to look at where we're over in personnel, service personnel, we hire our nurses as ECATs. Um, we need our nurses. They're doing a great job. This is not about the nurses. It's about you understanding what you're funding and how you are funding our positions. So, in addition, uh, a some special education teachings and aids are funded through the federal funds which are

105already covered or other external s sources rather than the standard formula. I've already shown you all of that. Um there's no alternative funding source available to cover excess excessive days. So if we want to keep our custodians at 261, we have to we have to find a way to fund him and that's where how we're over. >> So realignment updates, what have we done and why have we done it and how's it going to help our school system? We realign director's positions that correspond with that program funding streams. So personnel and prek, they're aligned. So we got some funding stream that's going to go to that. Now special education and technology, we have a shared cost there now for our services. Federal programs is a shared cost that we have with them. So everybody's got

106a little bit of a funding stream. We abolish positions to support areas of need. We abolished the assistant principal at Greenbank Elementary Middle School. Originally, that grant was supposed to be $109,000. Then we went through that little federal government issue. Remember that at the beginning of the year when funds were getting reduced, the grant actually came in at $63,468.62, which was $45,531.38 less than we thought we were going to get. We put all that money into Miss Schoffner's salary. At the end of the year, Miss Schoffner was not going to have a job. So, she applied for Marlington Elementary and got that job. Now, will there be some carryover that's left for Greenbank Elementary Middle School to do some professional development or do some work towards school improvement? Absolutely. We just got to get those

107final numbers in. We just don't know what they are. and we will give it to that staff to make a decision on how they want to spend it for school improvement to continue that process in their school. Um, two counselor's positions, one at Pocahontas County High School and one at Greenbank Elementary Middle. I've talked to you about how I'm going to realign those. We are going to have a graduation coach. Um, we have preferred counseling on that. That gives us some flexibility because we're already compliant with law and a graduation coach does serve a lot of the same services now that we will have two counselors there that has the mental health services covered. Three high school positions. We had one ELA, one social studies, and one CTE. We're bringing back a social studies position.

108For those of you that don't know, criminal justice is a social studies position. Yeah. >> Um, CTE, the nursing program is a CTE position. We're just realigning that to our community needs. Um, Greenbank Elementary Middle School did not have a fourth grade position that was filled this year. It was unfilled. We abolished that position. We didn't need that position. Yes, they had a 20 25 or 26 in their classroom, but we didn't have a teacher. We had a highly qualified retired teacher that was had served those children in second grade, third grade, and then in fourth grade. They could not have been in better hands than the teacher that they had for that school year. Um, Hillsboro Elementary had a multi-ubject special education position. We abolished that position because they have 11 special education students.

109That's what I showed you earlier. That's well within the case load. I talked to Mr. Anderson about that. I talked to Miss Spencer about that and we realigned that to give them that part-time interventionist. So, here's our proposed staffing realignment um for Greenbank Elementary Middle School. We have had unfilled positions there this year. So, we're creating an administrative position out of their federal funding source through Title One. That administrative position will be a multi-tered system of support coordinator which will be a halftime administrative oversee data oversee student intervention oversee all the instructional things that they need there for K4 and at the same time at some point in the day they will also work with intervention groups that is within the scope of that grant to have an administrative position that the purpose of the

110county position we have the graduation coach We have a shared countywide counselor. We have two teaching positions at Pocahontas County High School. We have uh a significant number of students that have autism in our county. We need a self-contained classroom to better meet the needs of those students. Dr. Colins, Mr. Anderson and our consultant, we have all talked about this and we feel that this is in the best interests and the needs of our students. It is not only unfair to put those students in the regular ed classroom, but it's unfair to the students in the regular ed classroom. Uh it takes away from the attention of the teacher and we need therapies as well to go with those students. We need we need a behavior person to go in there and work with them.

111We have a lot of needs. Um, so we're putting an elementary program, an elementary uh self-contained program in Hillsboro Elementary. We're also putting an elementary behavior program. We have those students that aren't special needs that have um behavior issues. They're in first grade and kindergarten and that they don't stay in class. Okay? They beat the teacher up. We got to figure out how we're going to deal with them and how we're going to train them to be successful in school. And then we already talked about the Marlington Elementary position. So, contingent reserve positions that I'm saving money for. I'm hopefully optimistic, even though I feel like my hopes are a tiny bit dashed. Um, we need two positions for a JOTC program. We need some other program to close down in the state for us

112to get these positions. We applied for it at the beginning of the year. We haven't heard back. We haven't heard no, but we certainly haven't heard Jess. But whenever we hear yes, we need to have the positions. So we have two positions in reserve. So summary of what you've heard so far, we're adding a total of nine positions. We have seven positions immediately moving forward. Two that's in reserves for in case we get a JOTC. We have um one position left over in case we have an emergency special education position to keep us within budget to keep us under our funding formula and meet any plans that should come in the future and meet our present needs. That's why we abolish positions. That's why we realign positions. That's how we're paying for all the extra

113days and that's how many positions equate into those extra days. So that's a lot. It's a lot. >> Thank you. >> Question. >> I do have a question. I think it was on the second slide. >> Okay. >> Um, about all the schools listed and how much each student cost. Hillsboro has the least amount of students, but you pay way more for those students than the rest of the county. Right here, she just had it. >> The reason for that is because it costs more to keep a small school open. That's the per pupil expenditures. And when you have smaller amounts, smaller classrooms, you still have the same teacher salaries. And we have veteran, we have excellent teachers at Hillsboro Elementary and they have veteran teacher salaries. So, it's going to cost more to fund

114a per pupil there because all of our classrooms have under 11 students. Um, some school districts, and we have not done this, have instead of a kindergarten, a first grade, a second grade, or third grade, a fourth grade, fifth grade, they'll have a kindergarten, first grade split, but we do not need to do that at this point. >> You're welcome. >> They did do that. >> Wow. >> Anybody got any questions for Dr. Williams? Board members, any questions? Did all of that make sense? >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> It took a lot of time. It takes weeks, months. Actually, we started February >> putting our numbers together, pulling it together. So, it takes a lot of time to pull this together because personnel is nuanced. >> We know, >> very nuanced. So, and

115I haven't given you all of personnel. I've given you what you're capable of, what you need to understand, push. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Everybody learn something about funding for us? >> It's complicated. >> Yeah. Well, we can do this about every year. Yeah. Alignment of teachers. And the good thing about it this year is we're not ripping anybody in Pocahontas County. And man, we don't know how lucky we are. I just sent you a thing like we're ko county 100 >> 140 >> Randolph County 57 uper county 61 we don't know how lucky we have that we've got this you know a lot of times whenever these come out I was on the board at that time thank goodness but they got a lot of reason for it but it's

116it's helped down the line >> I just want to say the board of educators county board of education was proactive abolishing those positions. We should be commended for their support. So, thank you because it did save staff. >> Okay. Board of Education remarks, Mr. Gibson. >> Oh. Um, I got a couple things. Once I'd like to thank Mrs. McCoy for your new appointment and all the other candidates that came to interview today at this meeting. I think it's great. We have some good candidates in the future. Um, thank you, Miss Williams, for your information on personnel and the budget issues I've been screaming about. I appreciate that. Now, I'm going to look at it more um when I drink my coffee. And I am going to uh mention the white elephant in the room that

117two weeks ago we had a uh very own private personnel hearing that I had been losing sleep about over for the past two weeks. So I'd like to get some kind of an update on if at all possible what is going on with that. Is there any resolution in the near future? What is what what's up? We >> cannot discuss any personnel issue that's under investigation because we may have to vote on it in the end. >> You know what I'm talking about. The the is not private no more, right? I mean, >> it's aware. We can't discuss it. >> Okay, >> Mr. Gibson, as soon as I have updates, I will do it on the floor. This is a that's a big deal in my world and I I don't >> any personnel issues

118that come about the public board of education and you're included in that we cannot discuss it with anybody. We can't it just can't be discussed. >> Well, I'd like to get some resolution come out soon on that, please. Thank you very much. People want people want resolution. That's all I have. That's all you have. Uh, Mr. McN, I'd like to thank everybody for coming out and interviewing this evening. And, uh, like Mr. Grime said to, you know, keep out the We didn't really want to do this, but according to code, we have to do it. We've got to appoint somebody. We wanted the the public to to say who they who they choose. So, don't don't feel down harder that you didn't get it or whatever, please. Uh the other thing that I and I

119keep saying this and tonight we've heard a lot of stuff uh about not people not knowing in the community and everywhere what's going on and lack of transparency and all that. And to be honest with you, that was one of the things I ran on. And I can tell you right now, I don't know where it comes from because we are as transparent as we possibly can be and stay legal. It's like what Mr. Gibson's talking about. We can't talk about that. But as far as abolishing those jobs, I don't think we give you enough credit. I honestly don't. I have no clue how you have put and you and your staff put all of that together. that is and you all picked a good night to be here because you got a a good

120taste of what this is. Okay. And with what you did and how you did it and a lot of people in the community did not like what was going on. But I hope I hope and pray now that they see why you did what you did and you brought it before us and we trust you support you. We're not renting anybody. Nobody lost their job. Not very many counties in the state can say that. And she she says it's us. But I'm gonna tell you right now, it's not. It's her. It's her looking towards the future to bring this county back to where it should be. That is what she is doing. And she does it every day. And I don't know, honestly, I don't know how she does it. She amazes me. I thought

121I was a workaholic whenever I was working, but she's it's unreal. and and until you get in there and see behind the scenes of what all going on and what she does, you got no clue. And I I want to thank you again and congratulations, Karen. >> Thank you. >> Um like I say, I just she had and like I said, one thing I heard several times in we got a plan for the future. This young lady is planning for the future. She's got a long-term plan and I think I mentioned that several several meetings ago. uh we don't we don't see it until she says we've got to do this and then she'll explain why. But now you're seeing the parts and pieces coming together. So I hope everybody understands it and everybody sees

122that. So thank you. >> I just I don't got a taste of how complicated the law is. It's just the little bit we did about some months. Everything is like that. When I got my first law book 10 years ago, it was this thick. I moved mine the other day looking for tax papers and it's that thick. and none of that y'all's hopes, but you have big hopes of what you can change or what only changes you're going to make as a board member is working with your superintendent behind the scenes talking to her like the baseball field. I started working on that I think five years before I retired and got depressed and I just thought it would progress. But here all these years later patent well we did bid out during the pandemic

123but there was no bids on it. So I'm glad it's moving forward. You need bathroom. Kids need bathrooms. When you have girls practicing down there and they have to leave and walk back up to the old building. That's a safety concern. just so you can see >> and we're moving in the right direction. I'm glad we are. It's good time. Well, I have good time to be a warrior. >> I just want to say to the board, thank you for your confidence and faith in me, but I also want the public to know this is not a permanent position. This is only to fulfill Miss Holland's worst term. I'm still up for reelection just like these other people. So, this is not a permanent condition, but I'm grateful to be here and I thank you.

124>> Everybody interviewed really well, I thought. I mean, you really did a good job. It was It's It's We don't want to do this. We want the general public to go out there and vote for whoever they want to. And I will say this, we've had an awful good board. We've worked together. Uh whenever me and Frosty and I was elected, I don't know what, two months before you was, whenever we come in here and sat down and we looked at everything that was wrong, I thought, why in the world did I do this? And I'm serious. >> And then Frosty gets elected and me and him started talking and he said, "Why didn't you do that?" Well, I remember Frosty second floor. I just talked about some mess. So I knew that said you

125should be in jail. >> I mean it's completely it is >> but I think he probably understands a little bit more. It it's completely mindblowing to see where we have come >> from where it went to from potentially a state takeover to doing things the right way and now we're getting new classes in shape at Pon County High School and we're getting teachers at different places and the funding formula will come. uh you know what in one of the I forget who it was from one one of the people we was interviewing said you know money financially is one of the things that holds back we're okay financially >> we are >> we're okay financially we've got any problems financially and that's one of the things that the state they even hollered about that whenever

126we was down there you know because we got paid for 1400 students some of the other counties didn't so we've done well financed not just the last couple years but over the years uh so it's worked really well thank you for applying and thank all you running for the board you know >> because you you usually get two or three people you know and hopefully most of the ones that run for had a vendetta that they wanted to find out I remember the first time I ever ran for the board of education I'm going to tell this story. There was a lady that wanted to find an airline coach in Canoa County. So, she spent $1.5 million getting elected to the board of education. >> I still probably still couldn't find it. >> Yeah. The

127young lady got fired or not, but because her daughter didn't get picked on a cheerleading squad. So, but uh we we really appreciate everybody applying and you all doing a great job, but keep campaigning. All right. Well, we may have to make the adjustment to this next board meeting. >> If we can if we can. >> Okay. >> We got one in the morning. >> Yeah. No, >> this is the 21st. >> Huh? >> That's what's on the website. >> Okay. That's on the in the morning. >> Can we change this on the website >> to what? >> To the 23rd through the 22nd. >> Okay. Is it next to what is >> I don't know by law or not? >> So yeah, you can change a year, but it says that's the next Tuesday.

128So you don't want it to happen on the 21st. >> Well, let me tell you why. All these people, uh, three of these people that's on the board is running for reelection. >> Okay. >> They are having a >> Meet the candidates at Greenbank that night. >> So here's what I have to say. We set levy rates and there's in code when we have to have the next board meeting to set those levy rates and I believe >> that is the meeting then >> that is the meeting because we have to set the levy rates maybe they can move their >> day too far along >> not >> um how about I check with Sarah and with uh our attorney. >> Oh, we can we can move it. >> We can move the time. Okay,

129we can move the time because the 11th break 8:00 in the morning, but we can move the time. Instead of 6:00, we can have it nine. >> We can do that. >> The meeting up there is at 6. >> Yeah. You see what I'm saying? >> So, do you want to change time? >> We got things we're going to do for the recognition and other time. >> Oh, okay. We can do it later, but if we make that people wear next week, like I said, so they can do their state application. >> Yeah, because we have people that need to get on. We can do that in the >> um can we do it two or three? >> Yeah. 4 minutes last. >> Okay. >> 1:00. >> Come to town. Take your mom to lunch.

130Well, we talking about 1:00. >> Yes. If we I think we change the time. Make sure >> make sure we're within. >> Well, this ain't broadcast. >> So, that would just move, but we have on at a different time right now. All right. But >> this special meeting >> Okay. Our next board meeting will be April the 21st, 2026 at the Poconus County Board of Education conference room at 100 p.m. >> A special meeting. >> There will be a special meeting starting at 9:00 in the morning. >> It's a student expulsion hearing, but probably won't be an executive. >> Steve will get you up. >> Yeah. 9:00 tonight. There you go. We are here by