Hillsboro Elementary School Sets High Reading and Math Proficiency Goals

During the Local School Improvement Council meeting held at Hillsboro Elementary School before the November 7^th Board of Education Meeting, the school revealed it’s Strategic Plan for the 2022-2023 school year. The plan set forth two goals:

1. That 85% of their students will attain either grade level proficiency or achieve annual typical growth in Reading and Math by the final assessment of the school year.
2. All students will increase their score from a social emotional pre-test by 25% or score an 85% or higher on the post-test.

It was also stated that Hillsboro Elementary School entered 18 school level projects at the Literature Fair, with 9 moving on to the county competition and 6 moving on to regionals, where 2 won 1st place and 2 won 2^nd place. One of the first-place projects received best of show at regionals and will move on to the State exhibit on November 18^th.

During the regular board meeting, Brad Duntz asked the board to finance a new baseball scoreboard or pay to fix the current scoreboard which has not worked for years. He said this is needed to install team pride among the players. School Treasurer Sherry Radcliff commented that the board does not fund sports scoreboards, and their financial efforts are better spent trying to get air conditioning at the schools.

School Superintendent Terrence Beam congratulated School Nurse Jenny Friel, who has been named the 2022-2023 West Virginia School Nurse of the Year.

Beam also said they are pursuing to possibility of hiring a law enforcement School Resource Officer at PCHS next school year. He said that providing school safety in these times is so important they might even be willing to give up a teacher position to afford this.

Student Representative to the board, Haley Spencer, provided updates on the end of the PCHS football season, and said the girls’ basketball team started practice a week ago and the boys team has just begun practices. She also said the PCHS Student Council will be conducting a toy and canned food drive during the month of December.

Sherry Radcliff reported that she met with the school’s energy Saving partner, the Wendell Corporation, to discuss funding HVAC systems in the schools. She said they had believed that there were sufficient funds to air-condition 3 of the schools, but when they examined the costs, have now concluded that they only have sufficient funds to do 2 schools -Marlinton Middle School and Green Bank Elementary/Middle School. She said they may have just enough leftover to air-condition the cafeteria at Marlinton Elementary School.

It was suggested by a board member that they contact either Ruthana Beezley or Amy Truesdale from the Greenbrier Valley Economic Development Corporation to help them apply for a HVAC Federal Grant for additional funds to air-condition more schools.

After a consent approval of routing financial matters and reports, the board approved travel competition requests for the VEX Robotics Team travelling by private vehicle for VRC Competitions on the following dates:

• December 9 & 10 -Wellsburg, WV
• January 27 & 28 -Martinsburg, WV
• February 18^th -Morgantown, WV
• March 10 &11 -Fairmont, WV (for the State Championships.)

They also approved the Parent & Community Volunteers for the current school year, and approved the recommended Service & Professional Personnel actions.