Pocahontas Board of Education Holds First Calendar Hearing for 2026-2027 School Year

At the March 17^th Pocahontas County Board of Education meeting, Dr. Rhonda Combs, the schools’ Director of Technology, Personnel and Support Services, delivered a report to the public and the members about the preparation of the school calendar for next school year. Combs said that a calendar committee consisting of one professional and one service employee from each school is developing three calendars which will probably be narrowed down to two and be presented at the second calendar hearing on April 7^th. The final calendar, once selected and approved by the Board of Education needs to be sent to the WV Department of Education for their approval on May 1, 2026.

Combs explained that the state requires 180 school days per school year, with a minimum of the following instructional hours.

• For Grades K through 5 – 350 minutes per day
• For Grades 6 through 8 – 330 minutes per day
• For grades 9 through 12 -345 minutes per day

However, Combs said that by adding an additional thirty minutes of instructional time per day  to each grade level, the state allows us 5 weather closure days; 5 non-traditional instructional days that can be used for weather closures; and 5 additional professional learning days for teachers. It also allows the weather-related late openings and early dismissal days to be counted. The calendars will include those extra minutes.

The three calendars she talked about are similar, but two of them will open on August 12 for employees and August 18 for students, while the third one will start on August 17^th, with some differences in things like spring break and year-end closing dates in early June 2027. Combs emphasized that the committee is still refining these calendars and will present 2 or three refined calendars at the April 7^th hearing.

During Delegations, Lloyd Arbogast asked the schools to display the Ten Commandments in each school, as he believes God will bless the schools for doing so. Superintendent Dr. Leatha Williams responded and said while she respects and understands his passion for that, the State Legislature did not pass a proposed law that would have required that be done in all WV schools, and the Supreme Court in 1980 ruled against a Kentucky law that would have done that. As a result, she feels that it would open the BOE up to expensive and time-consuming legal actions if we were to do that.

Williams also updated the members about the proposed block schedule at PCHS, saying it was discussed with the schools staff and they feel it is a better schedule, chose a modified block schedule and are working on ways to smoothly implement it, probably next school year.

The attendance report shows that most schools have shown some improvement this year over last year in chronic absenteeism, which is not perfect, but is getting better. The overall rate of absenteeism has dropped from 30% last year to 27% this year.

Dr Williams reported that the schools have received two National Forest Grants, one for $229,349.30 and one for $40,473.41. The smaller one is for their Fund 11, which allows local flexibility in how the board chooses to spend it.

Williams explained how a number of WV Legislative bills will affect the schools. One of the bills will change the 180-day minimum school days to 900 instructional hours per school year, which equates to 156 days.

They passed the recommended personnel actions; policy revisions, the submission of a major improvement project application to the School Building Authority to replace the roof at Marlinton Middle School; Set end-of-year LSIC Presentation dates, and approved other routine actions.