Pocahontas BOE Inaugural Stakeholder’s Meeting Held

On Thursday, September 22^nd, Superintendent Dr. Leatha Williams of the Pocahontas County Schools conducted their inaugural Stakeholder Collaboration meeting at PCHS. The meeting was attended by about 25 to 30 people, consisting of school staff, principals, business leaders. and community leaders. Williams began by explaining that the purpose of the Stakeholder Group is to establish a core group of citizens and staff to help the schools in making decisions primarily concerning three important schools’ issues:

1. Their Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan.
2. Their Strategic Plan
3. School Safety Issues

After providing a brief overview about herself and her family, Williams reviewed the schools mission and core beliefs. That mission is for the county schools “to provide an engaging and supportive learning environment where every student is valued, empowered, and equipped to reach their full potential.”  It is supported by the schools Core Beliefs, which are:

For Staff to:

• Engage in a team and growth mindset;
• Promote and model positive behaviors and dialog;
• Create a safe and supportive learning environment;
• Establish high expectations for academic excellence.

And for students to:

• Develop a team and growth mindset;
• Display positive behaviors and constructive dialogue;
• Contribute to a safe and supportive learning environment;
• Meet high expectations for academic excellence and reach their full potential.

In discussing the school’s Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan, Williams introduced Ernie Dellatore, who is an Engineer with McKinley Architecture and Engineering. Dellatore, who spoke to the group remotely, talked about the role the West Virginia School Building Authority (SBA) has in improving school facilities state-wide, which is to provide the funding for school facility improvements. He said the SBA was originally founded many years ago by the state legislature after a school in Lincoln County literally had sewage flowing through it, but they had no money to fix it. He also said that his company represents schools in 25 of the 55 counties in WV, including Pocahontas County Schools.

Dellatore said he had toured some of our schools’ athletic facilities, concentrating on the dilapidated conditions at the baseball and softball field, which he said might need $600,000 or more to be brought up to standards. Other facility improvements needed include electrical work at Marlinton Elementary School, new Americans with Disability Act (ADA) Compliant concrete steps at Marlinton Middle School, and improvements to the football bleachers at PCHS. He said the SBA has set aside about 120 million dollars for their Needs Projects this year, but have already received statewide requests for over 170 million dollars, which includes the pending Pocahontas County Needs Grant request for funds to replace the HVAC system at PCHS.

The group attending this meeting was broken into smaller groups to work on developing a mission statement for the stakeholder’s group. Although that will not be finalized until the next stakeholders meeting on October 27^th, the groups agreed that statement should involve things such as school safety; social and emotional wellness, and academics.