The public hearings began at 5:30 p.m. with the vote being held at 9:50 p.m. More than 30 members of the community were in attendance at Elkins High School. Randolph County Sheriff Rob Elbon and several deputies were also present throughout the evening.

The plan presented by Randolph County Schools Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly would have seen Harman K-12 School close and consolidate with Midland Elementary, Elkins Middle School and Elkins High School.

About 18 members of the community spoke out during the hearings’ public comments sections. The board received more than 20 letters and written statements as well, Randolph County Board of Education President Rachel Anger said.

Among those who spoke out against the closure of the school were local businessman and former legislator Mike Ross and Mark Doak, CEO of Davis Health.

Randolph County Schools Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly, center, addresses the Randolph County Board of Education and the public during the first public hearing Tuesday night.

“You folks are missing a great opportunity right now… You shouldn’t vote tonight,” Ross told the board in his remarks. “Go explore other ideas… You got a new senator here, Robbie Morris. You got a new delegate here. The President of the Senate is the next county over, Tucker County. It’s a great opportunity to go to Charleston… the more you get together and work it out, then you come out with a workable bill.”

Doak said, “The mission (for Davis Health) is always simple, ‘Patient Friendly, Quality Healthcare.’ The mission for the school system is also very simple, ‘Children Friendly, Quality Education.’ Easy to say, hard to do.

“Consolidation does not necessarily equal ‘Quality Education.’ …With a large geographic county, long bus rides, education improvement, population growth and inconsistency with the 2020-2023 Comprehensive plan, let’s find an alternative to closing Pickens and Harman.”

Several teachers from Harman also made their case to the board.

“This school closure recommendation has placed undue stress and difficulties on all sides of those involved, none more so than for the children,” Dave Armentrout, a teacher at Harman and grandfather to a Harman student, said in his address to the board. “What makes our kids far less deserving of an appropriate education than those attending schools outside of Harman and Pickens? My grandson deserves the same chances as the other students in Randolph County have available to them.”

Dave Armentrout, a teacher at Harman School and grandfather to a Harman student, speaks out against the closure of Harman School while facing the Randolph County Board of Education members.

Ryan Sites, a Harman graduate and now a teacher and parent at the school, said, “I have continued to be positive with the children. I’ll say, ‘next year we’ll do this or that’ and inevitably a child will speak up and say ‘if they don’t close our school.’ I cannot imagine what is going through the minds of these young children.”

Concern was also expressed by those outside the county, as Sam Gibson, a member of the Pocahontas County Board of Education, and Dixie Lee Murray, a resident of Grant County who has worked with kids in Harman through vacation bible school, voicing their opposition to the closure.

Two teachers from Elkins High School also spoke.

“This cannot be an ‘us vs. them. This cannot be ‘Elkins vs. up the valley’ thing… We have to be together on this, and I know it’s hard,” Andrew Carroll, a teacher at EHS and an Elkins City Council Member, said. “Do we truly value public education? As a community, as a people and as a state, is this something that’s critical to us? And are we willing to pay for it?”

“I find it hard to believe that Robbie Morris and Jonatha’n Kyle can do this on their own, in Charleston with an anti-education legislature,” Ross Ware, a teacher at Elkins High School, said. “…with Mr. Morrisey as our governor, I don’t believe he is going to put effort into helping education in rural West Virginia when he was the same individual as the Attorney General who wanted to put all the teachers in jail when they went on strike, fighting for their rights. That guy is not going to help education. Plain and simple.”

Michelle Depp, the representative from the West Virginia Education Association Randolph County Teachers Union, talked about the BOE reportedly having to cuts around 30 positions if the proposal closure was voted down.

The BOE, after each hearing, asked Dilly questions, voicing their own concerns about the closure. Board member Ed Daniels did not appear pleased with the proposed length of bus rides for Harman children to go to Elkins and back home again.

It was suggested that students from Harman would travel between 49 to 68 minutes in the mornings and between 50 to 71 minutes in the afternoons, depending on what school they were going to and their route. It was also suggested that, for some routes, parents would have to drive students to and from their bus stop.

“So what is our plan if we go to a destination and drop a student that’s third grade or younger, and there’s nobody there to get them?” Daniels, a former school bus driver himself, asked.

When Daniels asked Dilly why elementary schools in the Elkins city limits were not being considered for closure, Dilly responded that he did not want to move those children around multiple times.

“So your answer was we can’t move those kids more than once, in Elkins,” Daniels asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to avoid doing,” Dilly responded.

“But then you’d be happy to transport these kids across these mountains,” Daniels asked.

“Not an ideal solution, but a solution that, again, is looking out for the best interest of all 3,488 students vs. just two communities,” Dilly said.

Board member Dr. Phillip Chua said, “Either way we go, we’re going to be violating state code. Looking at these bus routes, we would knowingly be violating the code on transporting kids, and not voting for the closure is going to violate our expenditures because we would be knowingly going out of our budget… either way we go, we’re going to probably be committing a misdemeanor.”

Anger said the BOE had already cut the Randolph County education system “to the bone.”

“I don’t know where we can cut these positions either,” Anger said. “There’s too many. We’ve already cut to the bone. There’s nothing left… I can’t cut anymore. I just can’t, can’t do it.”

The board took a 10-minute break after the last hearing before voting 4-1 against closing Harman K-12 School. The vote was met by applause and cheers from the audience, most of whom stayed through the four hours of hearings.

The four BOE members voting against closing Harman were Daniels, Janie Newlon, Chua and Dr. Sherri Collett. Only Anger voted in favor of closing the school.

The meeting was adjourned immediately after the vote was taken. Dilly left the auditorium at that point.