ELKINS — The Randolph County Board of Education approved a recommendation from Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly to post three GameChanger coaching positions during its most recent meeting.

Elkins Middle School, Elkins High School and Tygarts Valley Middle/High School are slated to become “GameChanger Schools” for the 2024-2025 school year. The cost for the program is $25,000 per year, and GameChanger will match 50% of that amount, which also includes a $5,000 salary for each GameChanger coach. The other 50% of the cost is being covered locally.

Board of Education member Sherri Collett asked Dilly to verify who would be contributing to the program. She added that three contributors were handling the other 50% owed to the program, and knew that the Randolph County Commission was contributing from its opioid settlement funding.

Dilly asked Elkins Mayor Jerry Marco, in attendance at the meeting, to explain the breakdown of who was contributing money to the program.

“The City of Elkins is covering Elkins Middle School, MegaCorp is covering the high school (EHS), and the County Commission is covering Tygarts Valley Middle and High School because they only need one coach up there,” Marco said. “And then GameChanger is covering the other 50%.”

Dilly recognized Marco for all that he did in helping get the GameChanger program off the ground.

“I would like to publicly thank the mayor for his efforts and getting this for our community. He’s the one that’s really been the driving force behind this,” Dilly said. “We attempted to get it last year but it was kind of a challenging start to the school year and we weren’t able to get it off the ground like we wanted to. We elected to delay the start to this year and we are excited about bringing the program to our students this year.”

GameChanger, according to its website, is a Student-Powered Substance Misuse Prevention Movement connecting West Virginia students and the educators with the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation to build school environments which prevent student opioid and other drug use before it starts.

“The thing about GameChanger is that it’s student-led, peer-led, so it incorporates the students leading the charge of prevention and helping each other,” Collett said. “So, it’s just not an adult coming out and saying ‘don’t do drugs.’ It’s the students helping each other do this and they are led with peers, which we are obviously voting on for the adults to supervise. But hopefully it will give our students tools to help each other.”

Dilly said GameChanger will add another element to what the county’s Prevention Resource Officers are already doing.

“I think it’s important to recognize that the PRO (Prevention Resource Officers) have been a big key part of delivering the drug addiction programs in the past,” Dilly said. “We are hoping the GameChanger program will evolve their practice and improve the effectiveness of the things that they are bringing to the table for our students.”

The Randolph County BOE voted 5-0 to approve all of the personnel actions taken during Section 8 of the meeting. Its next regular meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 5:30 p.m.