Highland School Board To Meet With Virginia Secretary Of Education

Monterey, VA – The Highland County School Board is preparing for a meeting with Virginia’s newly appointed Secretary of Education, Laura Fornash, scheduled for Wednesday, October 19. Discussions will focus on how to make the Highland County schools sustainable. In other business, High School principal April Goff presented an update to the Board.

“As of September 24th, high school enrollment was 124; this week we enrolled one student so we are at 125 again,” says Goff. “College visits both here at school and at various college campuses have been scheduled. All of our golf players made the regional tournament as individual players; none of them moved on to the state tournament, but I do think it was a great effort for our four guys to all four make it individually. Cross Country district tournament is October 27th . Volleyball, we’re kinda struggling, but we’ll get there; district tournament is November 2nd and the 5th.”

Mrs. Goff continues her report to the Board.

“I’ve met with all the faculty and staff about professional goals and I’ll be meeting with the administrative team to talk about resources and things that were mentioned that were needed in those meetings,” she says.

She goes on to discuss the process for selecting substitute teachers.

“We do use a rotation system, they listed alphabetically by last name; they’re rotated each week and you can see each week’s rotation,” says Goff. “They’re called based on the following; if a teacher requests a sub, I ask them if they have a preference, if they do I contact that person, if they don’t I go through the rotation.”

The substitute process includes scheduling of a backup teacher for each period of the day, to help reduce the need for substitutes. Elementary School principal Teresa Blum reported on State Representative Dickie Bell’s recent visit to the school.

“We had Dickie Bell here and spoke to our SOL [Standards of Learning] award celebration night,” says Blum. “He gave a very nice speech about feeling our schools are very successful, praising the students for their hard work. I know that Dr. Crawford spoke with him, thanking him and pleading our case. Several parents thanked him for his support.”

There is increased interest in Destination Imagination this year and there may actually be three teams, the kindergarten Rising Stars team as well as elementary school and middle school teams.

“We have our Accelerated Reader Wall of Fame; if you walk in you’ll see rockets shooting on our wall,” says Blum. “So far we have two students competing for the school record which is over 700 points, [and] which is still held by senior Emily Botkin. Our Lego League is up and running under the direction of Ms. Nelson and Ms. Nancy Wytchie who were coaches last year. They have nine members which is way above previous years.”

Additional events this month include the Book Fair and the Halloween Carnival.