0016 o'clock and I'm going to call this meeting to order. All members of the board are present. It is the practice of the board of education to begin our meeting with prayer and the pledge of allegiance. We invite you to bow your heads in prayer and stand to join us in the pledge if you so choose. Lord, we respectfully ask for your guidance and wisdom as we proceed with the business before us. Keep us mindful of our purpose of providing quality education for the students attending Taylor County Schools. Amen. >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Uh, Dr. Stallings, are there any adjustments or addendums to the agenda? >> In fact, Miss
002Garvin, there are none. >> Our 1000 series stands as >> I'm sorry. the 1000 series stands as or is that adjustment >> per I'm sorry per the announcement that went out today I apologize for that change we have shifted the presentations to next board meeting at the high school we did that so because of the inclement weather and the compromise of having students andor faculty from that building present today >> very good thank you >> my apologies >> all good uh superintendent respectfully requests approval of the agenda as amended Mr. Taylor moves. >> Second. >> Mrs. Scallow seconds. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion passes. 10,000 series information. Going to take us straight into the superintendent updates with data reveals, shout outs, and in case you haven't heard. The first thing I'm
003passing out, Miss Garbin, and board members, is your copy of the directory, the personal directory that we have been working on and waiting for some final information. Miss Westfall has been gracious enough to put that together for us. That's for your copy to have at home for your uh information accessing at your pleasure. The next thing I have for you is um an update that was a request by I believe Mscallo requested information about what we are doing in our county for bullying. Uh, and I've each of their schools has been uh kind enough to put together information about their specific campus and what they've been doing. Uh and uh I want to also mention that uh in addition to what those pages show and there are many many activities that are taking place throughout
004the the county. We also have uh in the process uh arrangements being made with a to uh host an organization called Optimus Prime which sponsors uh assemblies for students that are in grades one through six. It'll be a part of the spring event uh closer to the Memorial Day parade. That group is also featured. You'll you may remember seeing them in Memorial Day parades before, but they often have had uh Batman. More recently, that shifted to Optimus Prime. And they have these monster truck type activities that are real attention getters for the kids. They love that their activities are not done in the building. They're done outside on the school campus so they can show them how these monster trucks and then they take time to have conversation and and demonstrations to encourage and clarify
005the importance of not bullying students. Um, a specific date has not been identified, but that's also in the offing. >> Do you have a question about that? I I do have a question and it might be something that um maybe they need to get back to us on. I was just curious um with the new cell phone policy and so forth if they've noticed a decrease in bullying uh because of the students not having access to their phones if because I know that that was a concern that we had in years previous with some like cyber bullying. I was just wondering about that. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I believe it's [clears throat] been decreased, the bullying through at least use of the phone has decreased um because of as one of
006the results of not having the phone throughout the school day. I don't have any reports of having any of those episodes taking place of of late or I don't recall any this fall. But that's an excellent question as well. Other questions about the bullying components? I know that I just handed that all to you, but it was done by each of our schools. Some of them we actually gave you percentages and they actually surveyed some of their students for their opinions of that activity as well. As I indicated just a moment ago, they're extremely busy with that kind of concept going on. I'll move on. The next I wanted to mention that uh we had received information regarding uh our request about the calendar and the question that I was asked before was whether we
007should continue to have our meeting uh at Anna Jarvis etc. And in my conversation with our with Mrs. McCarthy who helps us organ or organize that and handle that get that through the process. We've discussed and made some decisions about um the process that will be used this year which will be a little different from our previous that would include that uh the following dates between now and the end of this month. We will be advertising in the newspaper information about the fact that we are in the process of developing a calendar for next school year. That information will also be shared with the administrative council meeting reminding our building principles about the importance of soliciting uh requests and recommendations from their faculty letting them know that on t uh Thursday Jan January 2nd Friday
008January second I thought that was wrong that we will be having that's a professional development day with no students and so part of that day we'll be uh hosting an in person and a team's option for participation by all faculty and staff to contribute recommendations and requests having been forewarned about the expect the expectation they'll be doing that in December we'll tell them about in December offer them the opportunity to participate in that process subsequently uh in January after the second uh January 13th is the date that was originally put on the calendar we've talked about that and feel that the space for parking in an office is not smaller than here. Uh so we were going to we're going to continue that location. Uh that's the plan so that we can then have the
009first of the two required meetings where we solicit suggestions and recommendations to be considered when we do develop a calendar. That would be happening on January 13th. Subsequently on the following meeting, January 27th would be the second of that meeting. we move things up just slightly earlier in the year so that we can give Mrs. McCarthy and those working on the calendar a little more time to develop it after having received those recommendations and suggestions. Um then ultimately our goal is between the 27th that would be that second official meeting uh Mrs. McCarthy would have a couple weeks so that we can then finalize and develop a calendar to be recommended to you as a board on the 27 excuse me the 24th of February and that will give us time for that to be
010uh proposed uh developed considered and then proposed for your approval. Um, in addition to that information regarding suggestions, we're also making sure everyone receives copies of the guidelines so that that can be again that'll be reviewed with the administrators so that they can then share that with their individual faculties during their subsequent meetings. Faculty senate meeting for instance that was scheduled to happen after our administrative council meeting but before Christmas break. Uh, the timeline we're just trying to get a sequence of events to get that up to the eventual end. That's the update I have for you so far on the calendar. I do also have some information rece I recently received a phone call from a community member that uh I believe will be placed I'm going to bring it to your attention tonight,
011but I anticipate having it eventually on your 8000 series should you have that interest. This individual indicated that uh apparently historically the board of education, maybe prior board members had um made a decision to name uh the Grafton High School softball field the Robert Timbuk Shields softball field. I was not here at that time, but they were asking about whether or not there should be a plaque placed there or a sign indicating that. I don't have the history. it was a former board member who made that call to me. Um, subsequently a second request was uh the possibility of adding a larger form of signage for the Grafton High School athletic complex which was previously named historically by a board the Papy Spataphor Sports Complex. Again, I don't have that history. I just was told
012that and again we can discuss that further once if as you remember it. And third was a recommendation because of the recent uh notoriety of a coach um and a previous well thought of coach that uh that this board consider naming uh our tennis courts at Grafton High School the Allen and Sarah Dpiana tennis courts in honor of their contribution to that sport. Again, I'll place that on the uh forthcoming 8000 serious agenda for your consideration a forthcoming. It doesn't have to be the next one, but I I made the promise I would bring that to your attention only. Not that I would I don't have the authority to make that decision. It's merely a recommendation from the community. >> I did want to give you uh an update. There are two more updates of
013importance. one. It was going to be a lengthy update, but as recently as 10 minutes before this board meeting, I got yet another email that negated all the stuff that I was going to talk. And it deals with the uh the status of the states and the county's uh recognition of religious exemptions for vaccinations. And the most recent is that we are to stay the course uh and we are not uh impacted at all by the recent decision for Raleigh County. And so we are currently in the st in the status of staying the course and following code. So we had done that. It was suggested that we move away from that and most recently that decision was handed out. It has gone to the uh Supreme Court and we're just now awaiting to see
014where that actually lands. Uh and lastly and certainly not least, it's a very important component. Dr. Decker is here to talk with us about continuous updates. We started talking to you at the last board meeting about the status of enrollment and dealing with have how how our faculty and staff status is and the process that we must start considering as we go forward. So I'm going to pass it over to her for that information. >> Pass that down. >> All right. So I'm passing some data to you. It's simply data just numbers that I'll I can explain. Um Mr. Mr. Dolan and I went over these numbers and we wanted to make sure you had this information before we head into the difficult season of personnel time. And so what you're getting ready to see
015in front of you is a chart that has data from the 23 24 25 school years. Um so what you'll see at the bottom is that says PMP 25, PMP 26, PMP 27. So what that means is the the 27 column is what we're projected to be doing for next school year. So 26 is where we are right now. So we got we have this information from last year. We get it about November from the state department after we submit our October reports. So that October reports include our student enrollment, our certified list of staff, professional service, and then what we are predicted to be funded for the next school year. So this is a combination effort between Mr. Dolan and my myself and our offices where we work together to look at enrollment, staffing,
016funding, all those types of things. And so, uh, I took this data and just over the three years that I've been here, I I I wanted to show it to you this way. I think it's a little bit easier than the charts we get because it includes every county on there and it's a little overwhelming. And so, [laughter] I I broke it down into just Taylor County. And so, the the biggest important pieces as you look at the top, you obviously see enrollment, which we did discuss with you last meeting that our enrollment has dropped. So I have it broken down by school as I will get into that when we look at personnel season time how that impacts each school individually. But we are just looking big picture tonight to see how this looks.
017So we we've really lost about 177 students total if we're if we're looking at all of our funding sources. And what what what is projected for us next year is this year we currently oh sorry that's that's mine for tomorrow. Uh what we are projected is that um right now this year we are funding about 15 professional staff over the formula which we we know about 18 service that's what we're funding. So a total of around 32 staff we are funding over the formula. But the concerning part is what what's looking to be projected for next school year. So if you see that last that last section, it jumps us up to 27 professional, 43 service, and then it it takes us up to about 72 people over the formula, which is a little a
018little scary when we're looking at numbers, right? So um we really took a lot of time to investigate this. So that's about 40 more people than where what where we are now. And so we wanted to have an understanding as to why that was happening. So I I did a little digging and so what I found is that since last November we've hired 23 positions as a board as all of us. So 11 professionals 12 service. I handed that out to you so you could know the exact positions. That still doesn't get us to 40. So what what happens is we are now because we have lost students we are losing funding. So the remaining number is that we are we are no longer getting funded for a total of about 20 more staff than
019we are this year. So where we are really losing funding for um the the additional staff and then we lost about 20 more positions. So some of it's not our not anything that we've done. It's just where we are number-wise, but it is something that we need to be thinking about as we're moving forward in the next few months through personnel season time. The great thing right now is that we're not funding that. And so we have time to make some adjustments before we get to that number. If we if we remain exactly as we are right now, that's what we'll be we will be funding next year over 72 over the formula, which I believe Mr. Mr. Dolan, I'm going to let him speak, but we gave an average what we think it is
020yesterday. >> It was roughly $3 million >> is what you know the dollar figure and that's just a a rough estimate. >> Right. So to fund 70 people over the formula, we would have to be coming up out of the levy out of our funding $3 million for the year. So currently we're funding right now we are funding 32. We have been doing that comfortably. That's something the levy was uh written for as as part of the understanding of what the community knew we were going to be spending. But just because of loss of overall funding, this number caused a larger jump than we wanted to be. So, we wanted to make you aware of that so that when it was that time to have more in-depth conversations, you would know that. We don't do
021not want you to be surprised. We're just getting these numbers. Actually, I got them the week about two days or so before Thanksgiving break last week. And so that's what I really did last week while I was here is really put this data together and we're going to start sharing this out with we shared it out yesterday with directors. We're going to start sharing this out obviously with all of our administrators and have some conversations about where we are and what we can do to assist in some of that and and kind of make some decisions moving forward. But we wanted you to be uh aware as to what the numbers were looking like. Again, preliminary at this point. >> Questions. So, we are already funding 33 positions over formula, give or take. >> So,
022if I did this quick math backwards based on that 3 million number, we're already funding 1.4 million. So, that would be an additional 1.6. >> Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Okay. Yes. So >> it's more than double but I just that >> right. So >> concept of we're already paying >> we're already paying for a portion of those people. Correct. Okay. >> So we're we are pay we are currently funding 32 33 positions and that next highlighted. So the increase would be 40 additional >> right >> that we would have to find funding for or make other choices. So that those are just conversations to be thinking about. >> So does that comfortably fit into the budget or are we going to have to make some hard choices? >> I think both. I think
023Mr. Dolan. I'm not going to speak for him on the budget, but I do think we'll it'll there'll be some time where we have to make some decisions as to what what we want versus what we need to h to operate effectively and efficiently. I I like to also say because I I kind of oversee a couple worlds here that you know this is a really important piece. People are our largest asset. You know, human capital, wonderful thing to have. We also have the facilities that no matter what we still have to maintain. So we have to also be able to fund the maintenance and upkeep of all of our buildings. And so we don't want to put ourselves in a position where we're having to sacrifice one for the other. We'd like a nice
024balance. I think that's the conversation. Again, not ready to make any decisions at this moment, but we just wanted you to have that information as we trying to keep you up to date as much as we can as we're getting this data in preliminary and and looking at it. Thank you very much, Dr. Sullings. Do you have any additional updates? I believe that's enough for all of you tonight. >> Okay. Um, do we have any board member updates or committee meeting reports? Hearing none, we'll move into the 2000 series minutes, policies, contracts, and agreements. Superintendent respectfully requests approval of the minutes from the regular meeting of November 18th, 2025. >> Moved. >> Mrs. Gallow moves. Mrs. Not seconds questions. All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion passes. Several policies and codes in the first
025reading which require no action unless there are questions on those. Okay. Two policies and codes in the third reading. Superintendent respectfully requests approval of items 2139 and 2140 in the 2000 series. moved. >> Miss Scallow moves. I Mr. Taylor seconds. Uh questions, comments, concerns. All those in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. Um if y'all don't mind, I'm going to skip this tonight. There's some legal stuff and we're going to run with that. I just don't have the breath. Um continuing into the 2000 series. got some agreements with the healthcare facilities and geoccom and uh reading program. Superintendent respectfully requests approval of items 2141 through 2143 in the 2000 series. Mrs. Knots moves. >> Mr. Taylor seconds. Questions. All those in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes. Uh, moves us into the 3000 series consent
026calendar. We've got facility use, out of county travel. [snorts] Superintendent respectfully requests approval of items 3072 through 3079 in the 3000 series. Second. >> Mrs. KN moves. Mrs. Gallow seconds. Questions? >> All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion passes. 4,000 series financial budget supplements and vouchers payable. Mr. Dolan, tell us things. >> Good evening. [clears throat] So, in inside your packet, you received uh we re we had uh one budget supplement that we received. Uh they were um grants that several of our teachers had applied for through the your community foundation. Um we received that funding there u last week. So, we had a total of uh three teachers that received these grants for a total of $6,800. So, that was nice nice receive. In the next part of your packet, um is a
027schedule of checks that have already been written since the last meeting. U couple pages there of um contracts [clears throat] and and stuff that we pay out and payroll items that uh have to be paid at that time. Um The next section of the packet is the schedule of checks uh that will be written upon your approval for all the various items that we have received, bills and invoices since our our last meeting. Does anybody have any questions? >> All of our um money markets and everything are still doing >> well. I will bring you I'll give you an update on at the next meeting. >> Thank you, sir. all that information. >> Wonderful. Any additional questions? >> I just had a comment. I just appreciate those who took the time um to work on
028those grants. I know that that's not an easy task and really appreciate their work there. Not at this time. Like I said, it's it's all stuff for the construction and stuff. We're we're good to go on. So, it'll be it'll be there for you guys for next time. So, nothing nothing foreseeable. >> Superintendent respectfully requests approval of items in the 4,000 series. Mrs. KN moves Mr. Taylor second. Any additional questions? All those in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. >> Moving us into the 5,000 series, student matters, personnel, and legal matters. We've got extracurricular extra duty, news, and resignations, subs, service personnel, uh, resignations. So, superintendent respectfully requests approval of items 5346 through 5350 in the 5000 series. Mrs. KN moves. I will second. Miss not your question. Seems very um I don't know probably
029not doesn't sound real good that this is the only question I've asked this meeting. I should be thankful for anyway. on 5348 since that's normally just a high profile position because it's always the one everybody thinks of you know when you're looking at school after school that sort of thing. How far are we throwing the net out for when that job gets posted for possible recruitment or applications? Is that just going to be in state, in county, out of state? Is it going to be what? >> How broad how far are we throwing that out? Is that search going to be >> Oh, well, you can answer that, too. [laughter] >> That would be >> All right. Well, I can answer both of those because we've already had this discussion. So, so all of our
030postings go out in our statewide uh frontline system. So they those do get picked up. Sometimes they get picked up on some of those um other advertisement sites that will pick them up from our state department. The state our contract through posting is is a consortium through the West Virginia State Department of Education. So it will be pushed out for the whole state and obviously shared out in that same capacity that all of our postings do. >> So only anybody that can bid on it would be in state. No, anyone can bid on it. It's just posted on our state. >> Okay. Got >> the state the state. So, there is a they can go on the Taylor County page, but there's also the West Virginia state page that they can go on, but anybody
031has access to apply for that. >> Who's normally on that selection committee? So it is made up of the uh school administrators which is leading us to the second question is that since we are currently interviewing for the uh this week we will be interviewing for the principal of Grafton High School uh Dr. Stallings has decided to hold to post that until that position has been named. So it will post um on the first January posting so that administration can be put in place so that whole group can be a part of that >> and you would not include the outgoing one since that one would kind of know a little bit more about >> we would not >> be more familiar. >> Yeah we would not >> I didn't hear Mrs. not question >>
032just outgoing just wondering if we would include the outgoing since there was a lot of knowledge there about >> no I mean I actually received an email from her she was going to um allow her two assistants to be a part of that anyway if we were going to post it after this meeting and not be a part of that but uh after Dr. Dr. songs would really like that who whoever this new principal is to be a part of that process as they will be the one obviously there to over help oversee that as well. So that was the thought process. >> And just I was ask the same question on the principal. >> How far did we go out on the search? And >> the same thing. So we actually have several people
033from out of state that we are interviewing and we have people in state, we have people in county. So we we had um 12 certified people apply. So we'll be interviewing on Friday with the faculty and a group of administrators. So I'm just quiet. I just maybe this isn't the time to say this. So, is the committee just of two or three? Is there an odd number? >> Yes. So, for the Oh, yeah. There's a total of nine people total interviewing the faculty and and the group of um directors administrative team from >> I think I I was meaning more towards the extracurricular like committee. >> Oh so >> for interviewing >> I'm I'm sure that they will also um include the athletic directors and they will be able to the principal ultimately makes that
034selection committee. So that's why we felt like it was important to hold off on that until the principle was named and in place. >> Okay. I am going to make a statement or ask a question because I've asked it in the past before and this would be the first one well not the first but one of the opportunities that I would hope I would get a yes that's occurred growthwise throughout our county during any given point in time are we I know we offer professional development I know we do that but are we giving opportunity for growth, learning, leadership, um, opportunities to prepare in county personnel to go to rise up through the ranks and become, you know, possibly apply and be successful to become administrators from within our county. Are we mentoring them along
035the way so that when opportunities arise, it's very rare that you have a principal, right? It's very rare that you have a principal opening opportunity or a vacancy and that um that we're we're we're digging down and developing those pe our own people. Not necessarily that we're going to I this is why I was really worried about saying this. Not necessarily that we're going to um give any preferential treatment, but that they can compete as on the best playing field as pos possible because they have dedicated so much time in our county. We want them to be able to compete as much as they possibly can for the administrative positions. Are we doing that? >> Yes. >> Okay. I have a another kind of question in regards to then the delay of that um posting.
036My question is how does that impact our students because of offseason training that they do for example? I mean like I know that they do weightlifting. There's other like offseason days. How is that going to impact our students? >> So we have a separate weightlifting position. that position still happening and they are still doing weightlifting at this time. So, uh that is not has not stopped. Will we will continue to be doing that. I will say that every sport is a little bit different and so typically they try not to intervene when another major varsity sport is happening. So, I would not foresee that football's doing a lot of flex days during a heavy basketball season time not to interfere. They might throw things in, but this is really the slow downtime for the football
037season. But there is still the weightlifting position that we hire completely separate from this position that is still active and happening. >> Thank you. I just always want to think about our students first. >> Any additional questions for the 5000 series? All right, we have an open motion on the floor. All those in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. Moving us solidly into the 8000 series. Board member comments and discussions. Does anyone have anything they'd like to put on the agenda for future discussion? I would like more history on the naming of these fields. Um, I had zero idea that they had names at all. Nobody I have never heard any of those referred to as such. >> I think I remember that softball one, but that's it. >> I know that you have baseball.
038>> Yeah, we knew that. >> And if they have names, Mr. Spat, >> Mr. spat has that there's a stone a recognition stone in front of the cl John you know what I'm talking about that recognizes papy spat I didn't know that gentleman but that's been there for a while and I know so those are the two things I know >> and but I can try to find out that the other locations I don't know anything about them >> I I vaguely remember the softball name >> Mr. shields in in >> I had heard that as well. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> But honestly, I'll say if if they are if they have been voted on by previous boards to be legitimate um naming of the facilities and we have names on like the baseball
039field and you know that needs to be fair across the board, right? >> Agreed. I don't we could do >> one field has a plaque or a another one needs to have the same um needs to have the same thing if it's been legitimately voted on as a name. I just >> if you're interested in that discussion then I could always simply make a recommendation from the superintendent for you to and we could list each of those separately for you to consider in the future. I don't know how this process works other than you would make a motion and have that decision made. Yeah, I'd like to discuss it further. >> For example, like thank god we hadn't done it before now because it's just now looking good, >> you know, if we would have
040done it a long time ago, it's hard to tell what it would look like, you know. So, if we have anything that's under construction right now, let's get the price for it, get that locked in, but not maybe display it until we're done with the construction of it. Because >> I have >> That's a good point. I have some questions and things in my mind that I'd like to ask, but I first want to get information before I do propose my questions um or my thoughts. If we can get information from you, >> I'll do I'll do my best. What we'll do is I guess we'll do a search through the minutes, but I don't even have a range. It might take a while. My thoughts are more of how we should proceed in the
041future with such items whether it's a policy whether it's guideline >> we can investigate that as well >> but I have those thoughts and we can talk about that later >> yeah the like I said the call came in just yesterday I I said okay I can't promise anything other than I will bring it to the attention of >> you can just get us as much as you can let us look at it. >> Sure. I can prepare what I can find >> the next meeting or maybe J first in J sometime soon. >> As soon as Yes. >> Con considering the holidays sometime soon would be appropriate. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Along with that maybe um and I know Dr. Decker probably will be doing this, but just kind of
042an update on some of our projects related to um you know, I know we had talked about the turfing and the lighting and different things like that. So maybe if we're talking about the different um sports complexes, we could get an update on that. And then you know what what kind of needs or construction that would help I think uh with Mr. Dowy's inquiry there, too. >> This has nothing to do with that, but one thing I wanted to give a shout out for West Taylor. I've never done the afternoon parent pickup. Um, I've only done morning. Um, they are in the process of doing their overhead for the canopy right now. Not only are those workers doing a phenomenal job, but the teachers are doing and Mrs. KN principal knots are doing an excellent
043job with that construction like getting around that. I had no idea what I was even doing like how to go through that but not not for not being told just I'd never done it before. Um well it's been years since I done it. Um, but coming through there and they literally had it all set up where to stop and to stay away, you know, to get away from them. And when they came out at 2:45, everything was just perfect. They they're doing an excellent job. So, >> that's awesome. >> Thank you. That's we'll make sure she hears that as well. >> Fantastic. Right. Any other for the common good? All right, hearing none, we'll move into the 9,000 series. Future meetings, December 16th, 6 o'clock now at Grafton High School. On January 13th, 5:30 calendar
044meeting, followed by a six o'clock board meeting, both at Anna Jarvis Elementary, >> the 16th. >> Oh. Oh, we are >> um January 27th, 5:30 calendar meeting followed by six o'clock board meeting. Both here at the board office. February 10th, 6 o'clock board meeting out at Flemington Elementary. And February 24th, 6 o'clock back here at the board office. We're not going to add anything else. That's delightful. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Mr. Taylor moves. >> Second. >> Mrs. Gallo seconds. All those in favor? >> I. And we are adjourned at 6:40. Thank you very much everyone for everything you do. Travel safely. Stay warm.