SUMMERS COUNTY W.Va. (Hinton News) – The Summers County Board of Education met at Talcott Elementary School on March 24.
The students, introduced by Principal Rebecca Brown, gave three interesting presentations. Joshua Ramsey, a fourth grader, read a story he had written and submitted to a state-wide writing contest. Joshua came in first place, not just in the district, but in the whole state. Bo Perry demonstrated his dexterity with a yo-yo. Then Christopher Summers, Ivy Cales, and Aysia Crawford-Edwards, with about fifteen members of the Drama Club, performed a scene from the musical Matilda, Jr. Their energy and enthusiasm were contagious. The full play will be given on April 24 and 25 at the school.
There was a general discussion about moving the Central Board Office from its current location below the old high school gym to either the former board office on Main Street, adjacent to Hinton Area Elementary, or Summers County High School. Lauren Crook, the Chief Business Officer, explained that the utilities alone were costing $56,000 a year at the current location. That money could be saved by relocating. The matter was tabled until the Board members reviewed the options. Because of a snow day in March, the final day of school for students was set for May 29.
The primary business of the meeting was to handle personnel transfers and hirings. During the course of that discussion, it was brought out that the Summers County School system has employed nine aides over and above what is reimbursed through the state school aid formula. The State Legislature has mandated that all classrooms, grades one through three, have an aide. This is in addition to the aides that are required for kindergarten and special ed, so the aides hired are necessary—they just are not being covered by state funding. Most of the funding for Summers County schools comes from the State through the school aid formula, which is a nine-step process based on net adjusted enrollment. Each step funds a specific area, for example, teachers, service personnel, transportation, and so forth. If a county school system exceeds the amount in any given step, then it has to get the money from somewhere else.
There were news reports during the recent legislative session that some legislators wanted to modify the school aid formula to help counties with student populations of fewer than 1,200. The formula was initiated more than forty-five years ago and has not been significantly modified. Summers County has about one thousand students and could potentially have benefited from a change in the formula. However, the legislature failed to act on the idea.
I questioned Superintendent Linda Knott whether the upcoming levy vote would help with these nine aides who are over the formula. She replied that the levy was designed specifically to provide funds to the Board for those aides, in addition to providing funds for other necessary items such as upgrading aging maintenance and bus garage service vehicles. The very first item in the levy call is to provide support to hire teachers and service personnel. Aides are classified as ‘service’. The levy will be on the May primary ballot and is a modest 20%, which works out to 9.68 cents ($00.0968) per $100 of assessed value on owner-occupied residential real estate.
The next Board meeting will be on April 14 at Jumping Branch School. All Board meetings are live-streamed and open to the public.
