By Stephen Smoot
One of the main goals of the final regular Board of Education meeting in July lay in approving policy changes. Discussion, however, centered for a time on the need to continued promotion of career and technical education opportunities, especially in earlier years.
A Board member shared the opening prayer, saying “we thank You for allowing us to gather here this evening to address issues related to Hardy County Schools.”
Attendees then recited the Pledge of Allegiance and all introduced themselves.
Dixie Bean ran the meeting as Hardy County Board of Education President. Superintendent Sheena Van Meter was not present at the meeting.
First, the Board tended to unfinished business, tackling first some policy changes. They addressed personal electronic devices first. In last spring’s session of the West Virginia State Legislature, a bill passed requiring some kind of policy governing these devices. Many counties opted to produce policies for students and staff alike.
Students have two policies to become aware of. Board members favored having separate signature sheets for both to ensure attention from students and parents.
School systems also received a mandate by the State Legislature to implement policy changes with discipline as well. In Hardy County, the Board adopted certain guidelines and schools receive some latitude within those to customize policies to fit their specific situations.
Orrin Staggers, who serves as counsel for Hardy County Schools, related that he had been “communicating with administrators for the past couple of weeks” as they completed drafts of policy changes. Since they are new, they have not been put into the student handbooks yet.
Staggers praised principals later in the meeting, saying “all of our principals did a really good job.”
After approving these and other policy changes, the Board considered approving a bid to provide hamburger patties and ground beef to Hardy County Schools. Lost River and Northern Panhandle-based West Virginia Harvest both received consideration.
Bean asked about the fat content in the beef and was told that it was 85-15. She received the explanation that such a ratio served as best for cooking and taste, while representing the normal industry standard. While West Virginia Harvest had a cheaper price for patties, the combination of the cheaper beef price, convenience of location, and track record of good customer service with Hardy County Schools led to their bid being accepted.
Bean then asked about the salisbury steak served by Hardy County Schools, which is provided by another company. She stated that growing up in Kanawha County, the salisbury steak was called “mystery meat” and made her stomach hurt.
Salisbury steak usually is made similarly to meat loaf, but in patty form. Bean heard that in Hardy County today “salisbury steak is very popular. The kids love it.”
Bean then returned to the subject of classroom discipline, specifically the impact of recent legislation that gives teachers more authority to remove problem children from classrooms. She stated that “I know we have to manage our classrooms, but for a teacher to be able to say if a child’s disruptive, to be able to say ‘I don’t want that child in my room.’” Her concern was that the student might lack sufficient support afterward.
The law provides for a tiered system of interventions to address the behaviors once the child gets removed from the classroom, including placement in an alternative school setting.
While not occurring much in the Potomac Highlands, a number of county school systems have reported serious problems with violent displays by children that threaten the safety of students and teachers alike. With teachers threatening to leave these systems, the State Legislature acted.
This led to a lengthy discussion among Board members about how discipline problems may relate to children experiencing academic frustrations. Namely, that children who thrive in hands-on learning might not fit in well with traditional classroom settings and that could drive some discipline issues.
One Board member pointed out that in 1997, Moorefield Middle School implemented a module program that allowed students to do self-paced vocational education courses. Students between sixth and eighth grades had the opportunity to use these “modules” for career and technical learning.
It was brought up that one student from this program had established an electrician business in the area later on.
When queried about what happened to the popular and successful program, it was related that Superintendent Matthew Dotson had “gutted” it when he took over from Superintendent Barbara Whitecotton upon her retirement.
Board members agreed that a culture change had taken place since that time. Now, the value of a four-year college degree has declined considerably while trade school graduates can earn $70,000, $80,000 or more.
Bean shared her experience from her school years in Kanawha County where her efforts to learn mechanical drawing and engineering often faced headwinds from faculty who did not see those fields as appropriate for women. She also said that elementary and middle school represented “the most important time to get students into settings that interest them and make them feel like they can have success.”
As the meeting started to wind down, Bean reported that the Moorefield High School football team and others had cleaned up garbage around the fieldhouse and “the photographs look really nice. Thank them for that.”
Additionally, the Board heard that the West Virginia Poultry Association shared how much they appreciated use of Moorefield High School and that they would like to keep Youth Day there in the future.
Finally, Bean discussed the potential need for a stronger policy on personnel absences. She stated that if the school system must make chronic absences of students a priority, it should do the same with personnel. Staggers noted that adding a policy could run afoul of state and federal laws and that he would return to a future meeting with recommendations.
