ELKINS — The Randolph County Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly discussed the potential of moving fifth-grade students to Elkins Middle School for the next school year.

During Tuesday evening’s BOE meeting, Board President Rachel Burns asked Dilly if he “planned on talking about the fifth grade at all?”

Dilly replied, “We’ve looked at the options and obviously the plan was to move all of the fifth grade over to the middle school. There are pros and cons to match and I shared with you three different options that we can look at.”

Dilly told the Board members that he will prepare to move in whatever their consensus is regarding the fifth-grade students.

“At this point we have been talking about moving all of the fifth grade over to the middle school for next year in preparation for subsequent years and subsequent closures,” Dilly said. “I know (EMS Principal Dawn Kittle) and her team have been actively working towards that direction.”

BOE member Ed Daniels asked Dilly if the Middle School building could hold all the fifth-graders.

“Yes, it will,” Dilly said. “I’ve been told, and again I can’t attribute, but I’ve talked to some prior administrators that were principals and assistant principals in that building and they said there were as many as 1,100 kids in that building at one time. I don’t know how accurate that is, but we’re not approaching that number. We would be closer to 800 in the building.”

Anger said, “If I was a mom and had a fifth-grader, and two or three elementary schools kept their fifth grade, I would try and get my kid to an elementary (school). My opinion is that sixth-graders need to go back to elementary.”

Dilly said if the fifth-grade students are moved to EMS, they will have minimal contact with the rest of the students in the building.

“They are working towards making sure that they’re isolated and that they have minimal contact with the rest of the building,” Dilly said. “But I think it’s important to remind folks that all over the state there are fifth- through eighth-grade middle schools. Actually, that’s probably the most common model.”

Burns asked Dilly if the fifth-grade decision was going to be a Board vote or just a decision that is made by administrators?

“Well, you sort of already supported it when you supported the plan, but again, we don’t have to necessarily formalize it because ultimately there’s no hearing requirements or anything, because it’s part of the feeder pattern of the schools and they would traditionally go to that,” Dilly said. “That’s why there was no hearing on that, but we did indicate that in all of the impact documents and subsequent information, as you guys looked at that information and voted on it, and we discussed it.”

Burns said something had to be decided before RIF and transfer season, which is slated for March.

“Right, that’s why we really need, if you guys are going to change your direction, we really need that right now,” Dilly said. “Because it’s going to impact not only a variety of aspects, but also the priority vote discussion. Because we are anticipating between seven and eight fifth-grade teachers being needed at the middle school.”

Daniels asked, “So with that consolidation of the fifth, are you thinking of Coalton and Beverly going there too?”

“Yes, that would include all of the fifth grade,” Dilly said. 

“Would we not be ahead to shift the fifth-graders from Beverly and maybe Coalton to Tygarts Valley, so that we didn’t overpopulate Elkins Middle School?” Daniels asked.

Dilly responded, “There’s a percentage of students in the Coalton region that I would anticipate would continue to go to George Ward depending on that bus route, we wouldn’t be changing that. We sort of left George Ward and Tygarts Valley alone this year just because of all of the large-scale changes happening.”

Board member Janie Newlon spoke up and said she didn’t support the idea of fifth-graders moving to EMS.

“I’m not really sure if I would agree with fifth-grade to middle school because we only closed two schools,” Newlon said. “Harman only has maybe eight fifth-graders. I’m sure if they come over this way, that Jennings can accommodate them.

“I think the difference is like 12 kids, from this year’s fifth grade to next year. I think they only have 40 some to where you are going to disrupt Coalton, Beverly and Third Ward. I just think, in my opinion, it’s crazy to move all of them for 12 kids this year.”

After several more minutes of discussion, Dilly said, “There are pros and cons to every option. There’s pros and cons to every approach at this point. But, I mean, ultimately it’s the consensus of this Board, and if there’s a direction you guys want to go, then that’s what we will do.”

Dilly told the Board that there will be 200 fifth-grade students in the county for the next school year.

Burns told the Superintendent the BOE “would look at more concrete plans” and discuss the fifth-grade issue before moving forward.

The next Board of Education meeting is scheduled for Feb.3 and will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the BOE Office.