Pocahontas County Board of Education Approves Construction Contract for New Board Office

At the January 22^nd Board Meeting, the Pocahontas County Board of Education approved a contract with Taylor Construction & Trucking LLC for the completion of renovations at the newly purchased building –the former Hideaway Inn, in Buckeye which will become the new Board of Education Office.

This $47,610 contract is divided into two phases; phase one is scheduled to be completed by March 15, 2018 and Phase 2 by June 1, 2018. The contract requires that the contractor maintain insurance coverage,  post a performance bond.

In his Superintendent’s Report, Mr. Beam said he has a meeting scheduled with Kathy D’Antoni, the WV Department of Education’s CTE Director to discuss the CTE needs at PCHS.  Mr. Beam also said he will be attending a RESA meeting at the end of the month. The RESAs are scheduled to be replaced with an Educational Service Cooperative or ESC on June first which hopefully will provide the same services.

Mr. Beam announced that this spring they will be filing with the School Building Authority (SBA) for another Major Improvement Project similar to the one they received for the High School last year. This one will be for up to one million dollars for repairs at the Green Bank Elementary-Middle School.

Mr. Beam said he has given a lot of thought recently about the future of Marlinton Elementary School and just how important it is to the town of Marlinton to retain a school in the town limits. He cited the struggle occurring in Richwood over the proposed closing of Richwood High School, and how upset Richwood residents are about losing their identity as a community if they lose that school. Beam said he now realizes that Marlinton residents feel the same way about possibly losing Marlinton Elementary School and that may have been one of the reasons the last Levy vote failed.  Mr. Beam explains his thoughts.

“The point is that the people here want a school” Beam said. “And we need to try and do that if we can. Now, no matter how you do it, it’s going to cost money; nothing’s free. But I think there are some ways that we can do this. We can let the public decide how bad that they want to keep a school, without putting all the burden on them and also give them some options. If the Board wants me to pursue this, and if the Mayer thinks it’s a good idea, then I would ask the Mayer to share our thoughts, mine and his together, with the City council, maybe we’d need to go before the County Commission and do the same thing, but more importantly get out and talk to the civic groups and let them know what we’re thinking. There has to be buy-in from the community. Like I say, if there’s a will there’s a way and we’re going to see if there’s a way we can do this.”

The Board Members seemed to support this. Emery Grimes said that the Board of Education is also a part of the community and must take into account its community responsibilities if financially feasible. Joe Walker said it is a social responsibility if feasible for the Board to do.

Hunter Wilfong, the Student Representative delivered his report to the Board in which he related the latest PCHS Basketball results and schedules and mentioned that the carpentry class would be removing the bar from the new Board Office and bring it back to PCHS, that Mr. Berry’s class would be hearing from Deloris Cutlip about flowers and flower arrangements, while the carpentry class has completed an off-site project.

In addition to approving the usual financial transactions, the Board approved the 5^th grade class from Hillsboro Elementary School’s field trip to Washington D.C. in May. They also approved a short Professional and Service Personnel agenda which can be found with this story on our website. The meeting concluded with an Executive session on a personnel matter on which no formal action would be taken during this meeting.

PERSONNEL AGENDA

January 22, 2018

Professional and Service Personnel

Pocahontas County High School

EMPLOYMENT:  JERRY L. DALE as Graduation coach effective January 24, 2018 for the remainder of the school year, 3 hours per day, 4 days a week at $20.00 per hour.

UNPAID MEDICAL LEAVE:   LEAH SHINABERRY, as Teacher of Mathematics effective March 29, 2018 (or upon exhaustion of personal leave) through the end of the school year.

Pocahontas County Schools:

RESIGNATION:  KRISTEN LECROY, as Substitute Teacher retroactive to January 9, 2018.