By Stephen Smoot
With 13 school systems facing serious financial problems, a group of superintendents statewide created a proposal for the State Legislature to consider
These proposals center around the concept of the “West Virginia Portrait of a Graduate,” which reflects the vision of Charleston-based Education Alliance. This organization is composed of the business community and other stakeholders who have, since 1983, contributed to public education policy discussions and debates. Its Board and Executive Committee includes officials from around the state, such as Mallie Combs, Hardy County Rural Development Association Director, Michelle Blatt, State Superintendent of Schools, Gat Caperton, Morgan County business owner, and others.
“West Virginia Portrait of a Graduate” combines two main purposes. It seeks to “backfill” for many students the kinds of social and personal skillsets once learned at home or from extracurricular activities, teenage employment, or general interactions. This also includes practical planning for a productive adult future. Such “soft skills” have grown absent in younger generations.
Additionally, the “Portrait” lays out the goal of improving education for the student to help him or her reach full potential.
The superintendents requested flexibility first in educational pathways and graduation requirements. To the portion of State Code, 18-2-6, that governs school standards, the proposal requested that language be added to that clause giving more decision-making power to county boards, saying minimum requirements for graduation “may include course credits, competency demonstrations, and/or assessments as the board determines necessary to ensure that graduates are prepared for postsecondary education or gainful employment.” The document referred to a series of classes required by the State Legislature, including a year of West Virginia History, personal finance education, civics, physical education, and other mandates.
Another requested change in state law was presented as “flexibility in accepting Transferred/Transcribed grades from other educational institutions.” The proposed change would give local boards decision-making power on whether to accept a transcript as valid or not.
A document presented as evidence for the change has raised controversy. The Superintendents shared what they called an example of a “homeschool transcript” in comparison to a public school transcript. Advocates of alternative schooling, which includes homeschooling, such as State Senator Patricia Rucker (R-Jefferson) and Delegate Kathie Crouse (R-Putnam) have blasted the presented document as an outlier and not representative of what parents who homeschool typically produce.
Another proposed change involved expanding the idea of tailoring a West Virginia high school diploma more to the student’s experience. It advocated “creating a two diploma system allowing students to pursue opportunities in credits related to their chosen pathway,” whether that choice lay in pursuing a traditional or a career and technical education (trades) pathway.
It also argued that any conferred degree “regardless of educational choice” would “require a digital portfolio of students’ learning experiences.”
Next, the proposal requested Legislative relief from some of a long list of required trainings required by state law. These join those required by the federal government and also the West Virginia State Board of Education. These address a full range of possible issues that could be encountered in the school system and include for all employees trainings on issues like coaching evaluation, active shooter drills, first aid, how to comply with certain state laws, appropriate employee conduct and more.
Another long series of trainings apply to one or more categories of employees, but not others. These include training on dyslexia, Advanced Placement, the Third Grade Success Act, the State Assessment, and more.
Total hours in the all employee training category added up to 20, or two and a half days of work. The total for all trainings of specific employee categories hits 81 hours.
With employees facing such a large regimen of required yearly trainings, the proposal requested “a small task force to review and evaluate trainings for possible reductions.” Another change proposed lay in extending the employment term from 200 to 202 days to accommodate the extra time used for training, but taken away from other tasks. It also suggested to “examine 180 days of instruction calendar for more flexibility.”
Much of the rest of the flexibility proposals center around personnel. First, the proposal wishes to do away with a restriction stating that a school system cannot reassign school personnel after the concluding day of the second school month. State code has also established mandates that lock “moves into rigid timelines”, require postings, require board approval, give priority to employees with seniority, restrict mid-year transfers, and give “grievance rights if moved improperly.”
This would allow school systems to move personnel around as needed to address any deficiencies that reassignment would correct. State code 18A-2-7 provides a number of administrative procedures that a school system must follow in terms of assignment, transfer, and promotion. Some of these include grievance procedures.
“Redact almost all of the entire code and add the following,” states the proposal, which goes on to suggest two new clauses “All personnel decisions shall be based on the needs of the students and schools within the district and made at the sole discretion of the county Boards of Education upon recommendation by the superintendent” and also “County Boards shall adopt a policy defining the deciding factors on which personnel decisions shall be based.”
Finally, and most significantly, the proposal recommends a simple way to address funding levels that will benefit all systems. It states that the state aid funding formula upon which school systems receive support from that source is too complex to be overhauled, taking up “three pages in the West Virginia Code Book.”
“The easiest way is to increase funding” by raising certain allowances granted within the state aid formula, it states.
Said Hardy County Schools Superintendent Sheena Van Meter, “the school funding formula is number one in importance for Hardy County.”
Each school system has the cost of a certain amount of personnel per thousand covered by the state aid formula and this is governed by other factors as well. It is not just a hard and fast number set in statute. After a 2019 act that substantially increased flexibility in certain school system procedures, systems received that funding whether they employed that many or not
J.P. Mowery, Pendleton County Schools Treasurer explained last year that for his and other smaller and sparsely populated school systems statewide, keeping the number of employees under the formula number, as he put it, “to the good” provides an unintended, but vital means of support.
“That’s how we balance the budget and keep all our schools open,” he explained. School systems that employ “over the formula” and past what the state pays for either have a large excess levy or are in significant financial trouble.” Mowery described the impact of this in Hancock County as having a “grenade go off.”
The proposal offers a minimum and maximum ask. Minimally, it would like to see the state cover one more professional or one more service person per thousand. The cost of adding one professional per thousand statewide would be $19.5 million. Adding one service personnel per thousand would come to $12.2 million. The total to add both would come to just under $31.8 million.
The maximum request comes to a three per thousand increase from both professional and service. Doing it for just personnel would come to a cost to the State of almost $59 million while just for service would come to $36.7 million. Doing for both would bring the total tally to $95.4 million.
Van Meter expressed support for the three per thousand increase, sharing that “if it increased by three that would do a lot for us.” It help to cover the number of employees over the current formula “that I don’t have to take out of our local share” of county taxes. She added that “we’ve cut positions every year to get close” to the formula point and shared that “there’s no fluff” in the employees of Hardy County Schools.
She explained that while the county had a $2 million carryover, Hardy County Schools had to pull from it to keep employees. Pendleton County Schools also had a healthy carryover, but Mowery has continually warned his Superintendent and Board to remain vigilant because of expected drops in federal funding, rising costs of food and other inputs, and other potential budgetary and financial headwinds.
Unexpected major expenses under the county schools’ obligation to pay can also cut down a healthy balance quickly, Van Meter giving the example of “a major equipment malfunction” being one of her concerns.
