Dilly

ELKINS — Randolph County Schools Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly presented the Board of Education with numbers Tuesday night comparing the cost of keeping certain schools open, versus how much the school system would save by closing them.

Dilly highlighted Harman and Pickens, both K-12 schools, in his remarks during Tuesday evening’s special work session meeting.

Randolph County Schools was placed in a State of Emergency by the West Virginia Department of Education in June. 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.

In Dilly’s most recent consolidation proposal, Harman would become a kindergarten through fourth-grade school, while fifth-grade through eighth-grade students in Harman would be moved to Elkins Middle School. Ninth-grade through 12th grade students attending Harman would be sent to Elkins High School. 

Pickens would also continue to house kindergarten through fourth-grade students, while fifth-grade through eighth-grade students would move to Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School in Upshur County, and high school students also would be transported to Buckhannon-Upshur High School. Virtual learning is also a possibility for both schools.

“The question has come up of what it would cost closing the whole schools, versus keeping those schools, and the cost associated with doing it just as elementary schools,” Dilly said Tuesday night. “If we would close those schools, basically the savings would be around $800,000. The savings would be $794,792.97 if we closed both… We still have to move personnel and we still have costs that would be transferred over to other buildings, though.”

Dilly said if Harman and Pickens stay open and there is no form of consolidation at either school, it will cost the county $1.7 million. 

“Even though the buildings cost us $1.7 million to operate, it doesn’t match the actual total savings, because you still have to move personnel related to the number of students, and some of those elements,” Dilly said. “So our savings from closing both schools is only equivalent to about $800,000.”

Partial closings of the two schools, and using them as elementary schools, would cost the county $917,324.60.

Dilly said the money saved from closing both schools is less than he projected, and he reminded the Board that it may take more closures for Randolph County Schools to achieve its $4 to $5 million goal, which, BOE president Rachel Anger said, would put the school system back in “the good graces of the state again.”

“Closing these two don’t bring us as far as I would like it to,” Dilly said. “That is one of the challenges that we are faced with. It’s going to take multiple schools to get us across the threshold of the savings of the target we would like to reach… We may have to consider just more than Harman and Pickens, we may have to consider Coalton and we may have to look at some other things as well.”

Anger asked Dilly about teachers being retained, as limited losses are projected with the plan at the grade-school level.

“A large percentage of the staff would still be required and we would hope that we could take advantage of retirements,” Dilly said. “A large percentage of the staff would be retained because we are not losing the kids.”

Dilly said he is in the process of putting together the same type of numbers for other schools in the county that could potentially close. He said he hopes to present those numbers at the next BOE meeting.

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During Tuesday’s special meeting, the BOE discussed school hearing dates for consolidations and closures.

“We need to try and determine some hearing dates. We don’t necessarily need locations and things like that at this point, but I do need to try and pin down some hearing dates with you guys,” Dilly told the BOE. “We need to try and establish some dates because we have to prepare for those 30 days that we need for the legal notices, and the impact documents that require a great deal of personnel, a great deal of finance, and a lot of different things, including enrollment projections and everything else.”

The BOE members discussed potential dates and times they would be available, and the preliminary dates of Oct. 8, Oct. 14 and Oct. 20 were settled on. The dates and times will be announced at a later date.

The next regular Board of Education meeting will be Tuesday, Aug. 19 at 5:30 p.m. at the Central Office.