Principal Updates BOE on Achievement, Attendance and Discipline at PCHS

Principal Updates BOE on Achievement, Attendance and Discipline at PCHS

At the November 18^th Pocahontas County BOE meeting, Christine Campbell, Principal of PCHS, delivered updates about that school’s Achievement, Attendance; and Discipline. She began by describing the school’s mission, which is to provide a quality education that promotes academic excellence, personal growth, career readiness, and a passion for lifelong learning. She also described the school’s vision which is to actively develop intellectual, confident, and responsible individuals who lead productive lives in their communities.

Campbell described the school’s strategic plans regarding academic steps in Language Arts. It is to incorporate writing activities which focus on analyzing, reasoning, and planning in order to clearly express their opinions, views and ideas.

She said that to achieve academic excellence, teachers are emphasizing every day that students need to be prompt, prepared, productive and polite, which will result in the students being present for school, respectful, innovative, determined and engaged, all of which will lead to better academic achievement.

Campbell said the October 2024 10^th and 11^th grade Pre-SAT Benchmark testing, the average score was 822, but that improved to 850 in the October, 2025 testing. She said the 9^th grader’s average Per-SAT score last year was 776 and this year it was 810, so improvements are occurring.

Regarding attendance, Campbell said last year 48% of the students were chronically absent. To improve that this year, they are following the new attendance policies regarding documenting absences and remedial steps which vary from calling and consultation with parents to punishment and referrals. They are also adding rewards and recognitions for good attendance. She said excused absences still count towards the chronically absent figures.

Regarding discipline issues at PCHS, she said they have had no level four discipline issues, which are the most serious leading to possible expulsion, but had 13 level three issues, which are less serious than expulsion -8 of those were for vaping, There were 22 level two issues, and 85 level one discipline issues, with most of those for being tardy to class.

Campbell said that 78% of the students had no disciplinary incidents, 22% have 1 or more incidents, and 4% have 3 or more incidents. They have been working hard to decrease these by setting clear expectations, using progressive discipline, doing better monitoring of the school and students, and providing positive reinforcement for good behavior.

She said the Local School improvement Council (LSIC) has set three goals: 1, to get the community more involved; 2, to advocate for high quality certified staff at PCHS, and 3, to advocate for a school counselor/graduation coach. Josh Hardy, the chairman of the LSIC also discussed his concerns and ideas.

Dr. Williams updated members on the compliance indicators, and the special circumstance monitoring of. Special Education. She said they are preparing detailed evidence of what we did for each of those for the state, including what still needs to be done.

They approved the recommended personnel agenda, then Superintendent Williams updated the board on the Board Office renovation plans. She said the walls are up, the windows are coming, and they are adding two new badly needed offices

She also said that under House Bill 3035, they have to measure the progress of each student from Kindergarten through Grade 8 and provide to the state the benchmarks of the educational achievements and current status for each student’s academic progress in each subject, and the students who require intervention. She said they are working on all that.

They also approved:

• school fundraisers.
• out-of-county field trips.
• A school volunteer list update.
• The state-approved holiday list.
• The Solutions Tree for 6 additional days of professional development to discuss special circumstance monitoring for Special Education.
• The posting of positions for 3 custodians/painters during break, for PCHS and Marlinton Elementary School.