Daniels

ELKINS — A Randolph County Board of Education member has offered feedback on the most recent school consolidation plan proposed by Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly.

During the second of two recent “work sessions” regarding consolidation, BOE member Ed Daniels handed out material that outlined his presentation, saying, “As a board member my suggestions here are from me personally. I have given it a lot of thought for about a month trying to figure out what we can do.”

Daniels said he has “gone out and talked to mayors in several different little communities and towns, county commissioners, fire chiefs, state senators, and the general public.”

“I don’t see safe transit being considered,” Daniels said of Dilly’s new proposal. “I was a bus driver and I’ve seen a lot of things – very disturbing things. Not that we weren’t trained, but I can’t predict an accident…

“If we were to close some grade schools here in Elkins and consolidate, we could probably do that safely. There wouldn’t be traffic going across the mountains. If you put Pickens and Harman as closed schools and you offer them transportation, (most are) not going to come; there may be a couple.”

Daniels said there will be a big responsibility on the bus drivers who would be making a trip to Harman and Pickens each day, and that the county would have a hard time finding drivers to bid on that job.

“They know it’s bad, it’s not safe to travel over those mountains on certain days,” Daniels said. “And yes, we do call off school due to snow and stuff, but things like wet leaves on the road will cause a bus to push out, it’s like driving on ice.

“So, I think we need to really evaluate what could happen. Because there are a lot of children’s lives at stake and if that wreck would happen, it is not a member of this Board Office, rather the board members who would be responsible and that’s what you all fail to understand…

“If I choose to close Pickens and Harman and somebody gets in a wreck, that’s on my shoulders and all of us (BOE members), that’s a lot of responsibility.”

Daniels said his solution would be to only combine the schools directly located in the area of Elkins.

“This is just my proposal, it’s not set in stone because I haven’t got all the information I need,” Daniels said. “I worked hard trying to come up with these numbers, bus routes, and situations to consider to make this transition as easy as we can.”

Daniels said he feels moving fifth-grade students to Elkins Middle School is a good part of the new proposal.

“We can pull those fifth-graders out, consolidate the schools, and keep our capacity down so that we don’t have to build right now,” Daniels said, “As for the ALC (Alternative Learning Center), I don’t think we need to keep that open, we can make that virtual…

“North School, it’s a smaller school that has a few issues and I think I would close that one, too. I would consolidate this (BOE Central Office) with one of the schools that we are proposing to close… This building could be sold… That could help us to get a little more money in.”

Daniels added that the school system somehow needs to bring back the students that it has lost in recent years.

“We have 400 students enrolled in homeschool and Hope, and we need to get those kids back,” Daniels said. “We need to find out why they are out there and see if we can entice them to come and join us in our schools.”

Daniels said that closing rural schools in Harman and Pickens will also have an impact on the communities’ fire departments. Daniels said he was told by the fire departments that students join each year, but if the students had more travel time going to and from school, they wouldn’t have time to volunteer.

“It’s about us, our town, our communities,” Daniels said. “We are Randolph County and we need to come together and make this decision. And to put it all on us five (BOE members), that’s a weight load, that’s huge. But if we get the proper information, and I got some of it this evening, to make these decisions, like room counts, number of classes per school, we can relocate a little bit and do some reorganization and save a little bit of money.”

In June, Randolph County Schools was placed in a State of Emergency by the West Virginia Department of Education. That tag will remain in place for a total of six months, during which time Randolph County Schools must create a balanced budget and come up with a progress update to present to the state BOE in December.

At the previous work session, Dilly presented his sixth consolidation plan, this one involving three phases.

Phase 1 of the new reconfiguration plan would be for the 2027-28 school year. The new plan would move fifth-grade elementary students from Beverly, Coalton, Harman, Jennings Randolph, Midland, Third Ward, and North to Elkins Middle School, which would be a fifth- through eighth-grade campus.

With the plan Harman would become a kindergarten through fourth grade school. The fifth grade through eight grade students in Harman would be moved to Elkins Middle School and the nine through 12 Elkins High School. Dilly said there may also be a secondary option for a virtual school program for Harman students.

Similar to the plan for Harman, Pickens would continue to house kindergarten through fourth grade students. Fifth through eighth grade students would move to Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School and high school students to B-UHS. Virtually learning is also a possibility for Pickens students. 

Phase 2 for the plan is highlighted by the construction of a new Middle School next to Elkins High School and the Vo Tech Center. That building would open in the fall of 2029 and would be for fifth through eighth grade students in the county.

According to Dilly, Phase 3 of the plan could take place anywhere between 2029 and 2035. The plan would be to move the Middle School and High School students from Tygarts Valley to Elkins once the new Middle School was constructed.

The BOE will meet today at 5:30 p.m. at the Central Office.