Dilly

ELKINS — Randolph County Schools is ranked last in the state among the current West Virginia school district educational rankings, the county’s superintendent of schools announced this week.

Dr. Shawn Dilly shared the county school system’s state rankings with the Randolph County Board of Education Tuesday night during its regular meeting at the Central Office.

During the Superintendent’s Update portion of the meeting, Dilly told the BOE that it is “very unfortunate” that Randolph County Schools is ranked last among other school districts in the state of West Virginia, placing 55th out of 55 school districts, regarding the West Virginia General Summative Assessment Scores.

“Results from the assessment can help teachers and school administrators pinpoint areas of weakness and identify possible achievement gaps to help teachers adjust instruction for each student,” according to the state Department of Education.

“I truly do not believe that (the rankings) represents the capabilities of what our student population and staff are capable of,” Dilly said. “We are going to be working closely with our school leaders this year and our teacher leaders to try and determine where we’ve continued to miss the mark and why we are seeing some declines.”

Dilly believes there are several factors that have gone into the school district performing so badly.

“I think part of it, there’s obviously concerns over growing discipline needs, disruptions, and lack of resources we’ve been unable to afford to support,” Dilly said. “We definitely need additional support in mental health realms — there’s a lot of elements there that are affecting student outcomes.

“We have a lot of different elements that we’ll be putting in place and tracking this year as we move forward with our step plan efforts, and we’ll be sharing that as we progress this year and also some of the increased accountability that I have shared with the Board. I’m very disappointed in the outcome because I know we are capable of a lot more than that.”

Dilly discussed the elementary schools rankings for the county, saying he was pleased with Midland Elementary, which continues to be one of the top performing schools in the county, ranking 165th out of 355 elementary schools in the state.

Dilly noted it was “really troubling,” however, that Beverly Elementary ranked last in the state, 355th out of 355.

Other elementary schools rankings in the county were: Jennings Randolph – 197th out of 355; Third Ward – 275th out of 355; George Ward – 286th out of 355; North – 290th out of 355; Coalton – 322th out of 355; and Harman Elementary – 352nd out of 355.

“I’m seeing a little bit of a positive trend moving upward from last year, but we are still not performing where I will say our kids are capable of, and our staff has the talent to achieve,” Dilly said.

“I think we have something that is a miss and I think we have taken our eye off the ball a little bit, and we just have to remember that we need to stay focused on some of the needs of our kids. Part of what we have to try to also look at is where we can find some additional resources to help move this forward.”

Regarding the middle school rankings, Dilly told the BOE that Elkins Middle School ranked 154th out of 168; Harman Middle is 167th out of 168; and Tygarts Valley Middle is 168th out of 168.

“I don’t think anybody is pleased with where we are at and I think part of the challenge is that we have been focused too many years on the wrong things,” Dilly said. “Scores like these are not something that happens overnight and it’s something that we’re going to have to work with our teams. We do have efforts going on to try and address some of these needs that we are seeing in the system.”

For the county’s high schools, Dilly said he only had numbers for Elkins High School (102nd out of 111) and Tygarts Valley High School (98th out of 111).

“I was not able to get high school numbers for Harman based on the sample size,” Dilly said. “Just like Pickens (High School), we were not able to get a ranking because of the sample size. So the high school did not have a ranking, but test scores would still indicate that they are at the lower end of the state ranking.”

Dilly also pointed out that enrollment for the opening of this school year was down 127 students from a year ago.

“That number of students equals roughly a million dollars in state aid formula,” Dilly said. “So you can see that’s going to have an impact and only expedites the conversations around consolidation efforts.

“That’s why I think it’s important to help people understand that we are losing money faster than we can keep up with some of the consolidation efforts that we have to try and do.”

Dilly pointed out that 244 homeschooled and 194 Hope Scholarship students in Randolph are contributing to the problems the county is facing.

“Those 428 students would equate to roughly $3.5 million in revenues,” Dilly said. “So it is part of the equation and part of the justification of why we are seeing the need to address much more swiftly than we would consider.”

Randolph County Schools was placed in a State of Emergency by the West Virginia Department of Education in June. The school district will remain on probation for a total of six months, and faces the possibility of a state takeover if it cannot create a balanced budget or show progress by December.

The next Randolph County Board of Education regular meeting is scheduled for Sept. 2 at 5:30 p.m.