| Pocahontas School Superintendent Terrence Beam announced at the March 29th BOE meeting that he has been informed by the West Virginia Governor’s Office that Green Bank Elementary -Middle School has been selected to receive a “therapy dog” under a new state program. Governor Jim Justice told Beam that he is impressed with that school, which will be one of the five or six schools in the state who will receive dogs under the new pilot program. The school will receive a Yellow Lab named Jet. Beam said they already have a volunteer handler who will work with Jet and care for him at her home when not in school. We will keep you informed as we learn more about what the dog’s duties will be at the school. Beam emphasized that this announcement came suddenly and unexpectantly from the governor.
Also, during Beam’s report at the meeting, he said that the Grow Your Own West Virginia program seeks to encourage WV high school students to pursue careers as K-12 teachers in WV schools. Pocahontas County is one of 24 counties in the state who will participate. The county will be partnering with Glenville State College – soon to be Glenville State University – in offering a dual-credit program which, if successfully completed by students at PCHS, will, in addition to earning them their high school diploma, will also enable them to begin their teacher education at Glenville starting off as sophomores, having already completed all of their college freshman credits while still Juniors and Seniors at PCHS. Additionally, their Senior year at Glenville will be spent as student teacher at a WV school, hopefully one in this county.
Beam announced the Pocahontas County winners at the Regional Social Studies Fair. A list of those winners can be found below at the end of this story.
Beam also proposed that the board consider implementing at a future meeting a streamlining of the approvals of those routine financial reports at each meeting to approve all of them in one vote as a “consent agenda” approval. He said individual board members will still be able to question and challenge specific items in those reports.
There were no Delegations nor Informational Reports at this meeting, which was held at Marlinton Elementary School.
In addition to approving those routine financial reports, the board approved a 3-year “Statement of Work” with the KEV Group, Inc. using that company’s software programs, including: School Cash Register-School Cash Online, which will create web-based solutions for school level accounting; online payment processing; tracking student obligations; and other related services in order to meet state requirements which will become effective as of April 1, 2022.
They also approved the following items from their Miscellaneous agenda items:
· They amended the Budget Funding Schedule of their agreement with Glenville State College, to meet state requirements
· They authorized the Pocahontas County Schools to use the “Restricted Substitute Waiver” to get more Substitute Teachers for the 2022-2023 School Year. This will allow new Substitute Teachers to be hired who only have a two-year college degree, but will limit their use to ten consecutive days at any one school.
· They approved for approximately 35 former 8th grade students from Marlinton Middle School’s class of 2020, their parents and staff to travel by charter bus for a day-trip to Kings Dominium in Doswell, Virginia on May 27th. This trip will be paid for by the 8th grade class of 2020 fundraising.
· They approved two recommended changes to the school re-entry plan. The first is to eliminate temperature checks being made on students, staff and visitors upon entering the schools. The second was to eliminate the requirement that the school bus drivers steam clean their buses every day, changing that to once a week. Normal daily cleaning and disinfecting the busses will still continue, just not steam cleaning every day.
· They approved a lengthy recommended Service and Professional list of personnel actions, which can be found at this link to the Official Meeting Agenda-3-29-22 Official BOE Agenda PDF
Regional Social Studies Fair Winners
Pocahontas County -Third Place
Division I /Psychology /Individual –Sgt. Stubby: American Hero by Noah Sharp
Division I /World History/Individual – Ancient Romans Bloody Arena by Stevee Crace
Division II / Psychology /Group – Mary Queen of Scots by Shealynn Plaugher & Haley Moore
Division II /Sociology /Group –Michael Jodan: The man that Changed the Game by Candence Kerr & Baylee Nelson
| Division II/World History/Individual –Mustangs by Savana Sharp |
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