The Inter-Mountain photo by Amanda Hayes Students and recent graduates performed ‘Country Roads’ with teacher Jeremiah Smallridge to open the Upshur NEXT forum.

The Inter-Mountain photo by Amanda Hayes
Students and recent graduates performed ‘Country Roads’ with teacher Jeremiah Smallridge to open the Upshur NEXT forum.

BUCKHANNON — What is the picture of an ideal Upshur County Schools system? What aspects of this picture are already in place? Where do we need to grow in order to attain this system? How do we make this happen?

These are questions that attendees at an Upshur NEXT forum addressed in break-out sessions in the Buckhannon Opera House Thursday as the school system held the first of several forums to begin updating its Comprehensive Education Facilities Plan required every 10 years.

After round-table discussion each group was asked to present their top ideas.

Expanding career and technical education available in Upshur County was one of the most top priorities mentioned along with a new middle school. Several tables brought forth the idea of a constructing a new high school and moving Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School to the current high school.

Curtis Wilkerson said, “Our schools we have in this county are not physically built for today’s education system and they are definitely not built for tomorrow’s education system. We do not know what the jobs of five years and 10 years from now are and our schools the way they are designed do not allow for that type of compatibility or adaptability.

“It is very obvious that our middle school is not useful as it is built and therefore we either need to have a couple new middle schools or we need to look at building a new high school and renovating the current high school for middle school students.”

Restoring the position of facilities director was also discussed along with a new board of education office space.

Dr. Robert Rupp added, “We owe it to our kids and our community to have updated facilities.”

Scott Preston said, “What we discussed most was integrating education and teaching and life skills to the education and passions of our student and matching them. What are they passionate about? Is it important to know about our Constitution? Yes.

“There are some things we need to teach that are important and crucial to understand ourselves and the nation we live in,” he said. “When we take the time to mold our teaching skills and our programs into a curriculum that identifies the passions and matches them with the students, I think we will be better served in the long run.”

Jodie Akers, director of student services for UCS, said, “One of the things we talked about was helping our students. We want the majority of them to reach proficiency but thinking out of the box, non-traditional settings, maybe different times when our students are coming to school and talking to the students and having some of these that are student lead.

“If we want to reach that 100 percent graduation rate, we have to make sure we are reaching our students and listening to them as well,” she said.

Upshur County Schools recently announced a 99 percent graduation rate with just 12 students who dropped out last year.

Rich Clemens said, “We need to focus for the students on their mental health. We have such a different family background than I grew up and what you grew up with. How can we expect our students to do well when there is no support at home?”

Clemens’ group proposed a different idea for the middle school by building on to the current high school and having separate middle school attached – or maybe two middle schools on opposite ends.

Dr. Sara Stankus, superintendent, thanked everyone for coming and said the ideas would be compiled from the forum to continue discussion.