Wyoming County Schools Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

School Building Authority Listens To School Proposals This Week

Wyoming County School’s Diedre Cline is one of 27 school superintendents making NEEDS Project Presentations this Monday and Tuesday. These school districts are vying for millions in state funds.

Cline is requesting the SBA approve funding of nearly $16 million to help build a new PK-8 school in Mullens. The new school would combine and replace two subpar, unsound buildings. Mullens Elementary was built in 1951 and the wood framed, fire hazard Mullens Middle School, built in 1928.

“Both buildings are seriously ending their lives, so to speak, as buildings do,” Cline said. “Wooden structures can become dangerous. This my eighth year as superintendent and that’s been a worry, more than anything else I’ve worried about. We want to do better by the children in Wyoming County.”

Cline said the state funds would be used in partnership with a local bond share of nearly $9 million.

‘Our county citizens have supported education in Wyoming County for decades,” Cline said. “We’ve actually had an excess levy passed by the citizens of Wyoming County every time it’s come up every five years since 1927.”

The SBA’s square footage cost allowance, stymied by the pandemic and inflation, was recently raised from $300 dollars to about $440 per square foot.

SBA Executive Director Andy Neptune said the new allowance should diminish, if not eliminate, the construction project budget overruns that the authority can no longer afford to supplement. Now, any costs beyond the allocated state funds will have to be paid by the county.

“We have gone back and talked to those superintendents,” Neptune said. “They’re the ones that deal with the architects and the engineering firm. We said tighten this up, because supplemental funds will not be there. I think that they’re prepared for that.”

Cline said Wyoming County is more than prepared to stay within a sound construction budget. She says if something unforeseen happens, the county taxpayers will cover the tab.

Find the school district NEEDS project proposals here. The SBA will vote Dec. 11 on which projects get funded.

State Board Of Education Mandates In-Person Classes For Elementary, Middle Schools

The West Virginia Board of Education voted on Tuesday to mandate elementary and middle school students return to five days a week of in-person instruction by March 3.

The board also voted for high-schoolers to return to the classroom in counties that are not marked red on the Department of Health and Human Resource County Alert map.

“We understand all the concerns related to going back to school,” said Miller Hall, state board president. “We know teachers and school staff are working hard and are concerned about safety measures, but so are we. Anybody who thinks we are not concerned about the safety of our young people, they are wrong.”

Thirty-eight counties currently offer four or five days a week of in-person instruction, according to the Department of Education website. If they want to continue with the four-day model that allows a day for local virtual instruction, counties will have to apply for a waiver.

Hall emphasized that this decision follows state and national data showing little to no classroom transmission.

“This is not he said, she said, or hearsay,” said Hall. “This is data.”

State coronavirus czar Clay Marsh spoke to the board this week and said that with proper masking and distancing, elementary and middle school classrooms are safe for teachers and students.

“I think it is reassuring that with the appropriate mitigation strategies, we just don’t see the spread in the classroom,” he said.

A state team of epidemiologists has learned from last year’s data that any transmission happening between teachers and students is in an environment where masks are not or cannot be worn, he said.

“We’re seeing spread on sports teams,” Marsh said. “We’re seeing spread in meetings between adults and lunches where people aren’t really as careful with masking.”

Special education classes where students are unable to wear a mask and music class where students are singing or playing instruments in an enclosed area also led to transmission, Marsh said.

There is also evidence of individuals becoming infected at home by a family member or in the community and bringing that illness into the school, Marsh added.

He also clarified that while six feet is recommended, recent medical studies from Asia show three feet can be sufficient with proper mask-wearing.

Across the state, cases of COVID-19 are at the lowest point since the fall and the percentage of vaccinated West Virginians continues to lead the nation.

Almost 75% of teachers over the age of 50 have been vaccinated in Wyoming County, and the county board there voted Monday to return to the classroom five days a week.

“We’ve had so few cases of Covid in our schools,” Superintendent Deirdre Cline said Friday to the Wyoming County Report. “Our county has been green all week. We feel like our schools are doing a phenomenal job with the safety guidelines – wearing masks, social distancing, hand-washing. Our people and parents want the children back full-time. It’s time to move.”

Vaccines have been made available to teachers and service personnel over the age of 50. Marsh said the state is currently prioritizing the senior population but as more vaccines become available, educators under 50 and the rest of the essential workforce will be eligible for vaccinations.

“The key part of this is that we are not vaccinating teachers and service personnel because it’s not safe to be back in the classroom,” Marsh said. “We are doing this or recommending this as an additional safeguard for them to be in the classroom.”

In Preston County, students returned to four days a week of in-person instruction yesterday, with online classes on Fridays. In comments to the Dominion Post, Superintendent Steve Wotring laid out simple reasoning.

“It’s just time,” he said.

Due to Cuts and Calendar Wyoming County Cancels Summer School

Wyoming County Schools has canceled its free summer school program because of funding cuts and a harsh winter.

Schools Superintendent Frank Blackwell tells The Register-Herald that the county’s tax revenue has declined and federal funds for such programs have been cut.

The school district also has to make up 14 instructional days lost to winter weather. That means all county students will be in the classroom until June 24.

Blackwell says school officials are trying to offset the summer program’s cancellation. The district is using levy funding to operate an “after-school activity bus.” The bus will take students home from any after-school program, including tutoring.