Hillsboro Elementary Recognized for Exceeding Standard Performance in Math
At the December 2nd Pocahontas County BOE meeting, Superintendent Dr. Leitha Williams presented a Certificate of Recognition to the Hillsboro Elementary School Principal and staff for achieving the “Exceeds Standard Performance” level for Mathematics on the 2025 West Virginia Balanced Scorecard.
Dr. Williams also gave a very good evaluation of the presentations by the schools’ LSICs on their implementations of their strategic plans per policy 2322. She said this had been one area the state had told them to improve on.
Representatives of Hillsboro Elementary School delivered updates about that school’s Achievement, Attendance; and Discipline. They described the school’s excellent testing results for the 2024-2025 school year:
| Grade level | ELA Proficiency Rate | Math Proficiency Rate |
| Kindergarten | 92% | 70% |
| 1st | 40% | 40% |
| 2nd | 38% | 53% |
| 3rd | 58% | 75% |
| 4th | 64% | 73% |
| 5th | 88% | 76% |
They explained that they also performed benchmark testing at the beginning of this school year, which is done to determine a starting point for the school, year and as a measure of how much learning regression occurred over the summer vacation. Those results were, expectedly much lower and are designed to measure improvement in the end of year testing this school year.
| Grade level | ELA Proficiency Rate | Math Proficiency Rate |
| Kindergarten | 33% | 11% |
| 1st | 0% | 0% |
| 2nd | 14% | 0% |
| 3rd | 30% | 10% |
| 4th | 40% | 30% |
| 5th | 45% | 36% |
The numbers of students in need of intervention for Hillsboro as determined by the benchmark testing are:
| Grade level | ELA | Math Proficiency Rate |
| Kindergarten | 0 | 0 |
| 1st | 0 | 0 |
| 2nd | 3 | 2 |
| 3rd | 3 | 0 |
| 4th | 0 | 1 |
| 5th | 4 | 4 |
The attendance rates so far this year at Hillsboro were excellent, with 96.8% overall attendance through November. To accomplish this, they offer recognition for good attendance by class which is displayed on an “Attendance Wall,” and classes with good attendance get things like keychains in monthly recognition.
There were 16% of the students categorized as Chronically Absent. Of course, that number counts excused absences such as for illness or doctor’s appointments towards the chronically absent totals.
Regarding disciplinary incidents so far this year, the school had 82% of its students with no discipline incidents, and a total of 30 incidents, with 43% of the discipline incidents occurring on school buses.
The goals the school set for this year include having 85% of students at grade level proficiency or having achieved annual typical growth of the benchmark testing at the end of year testing, and keeping chronically absent students to less than 25%.
Regarding Federal Program Monitoring, Williams, said the evaluation of this went well, with a few minor problems which are being addressed.
After approving routine financial reports, they approved the recommended personnel agenda. then Williams told the board that all Special Education issues identified by the state have been addressed and before the Thanksgiving holiday those fixes were sent to the state for review.
Regarding the Public-School Support Program, Williams reported that they are 1.3 employees over what the state pays them for.
She also announced that the ribbon cutting ceremony for the PCHS gym will be held just before the December 16th BOE meeting to be held at PCHS.
The board approved policy revisions, or final policies on 11 policies, and then approved the posting of security guard positions at the schools.
In new business, they approved school fundraisers, out-of-county field-trips, CEFP updates, and a contract with Neoteric for wheelchair lift maintenance at PCHS and Marlinton Elementary School.
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