The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley It was decided at Tuesday’s Randolph County Board of Education meeting that most fifth-grade students in the county will be moved to Elkins Middle School in the fall.

ELKINS — Most Randolph County Schools’ fifth-grade students will be moving to Elkins Middle School in the fall, the Randolph County Board of Education decided Tuesday evening.

After the Board members and Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly discussed the matter of moving fifth-graders from the grade schools during Tuesday’s BOE meeting, the two sides came to the realization that no vote was needed to make the decision.

“I don’t know why we are even voting on this, or even discussing it,” BOE member Dr. Sherri Collett said. “I mean, back on Sept. 2nd, the presentation was made that the fifth-graders were going to middle school. So we proceeded as a Board with the Impact Statements and the closures and everything else that the fifth grade was going to the middle school… I think it needs to proceed the way that it was supposed to be proceeded in our Impact Statements.”

Dilly said it was being discussed because questions came up when the BOE decided not to close all the schools (Coalton Elementary and Midland Elementary) that were proposed for closure.

“When the Board elected to not approve the full complete closure list, we ultimately had concerns raised and members of this Board raised these concerns and that’s why we are here this evening,” Dilly said. “We are asking for clarification because we don’t want to commit down a path that this Board doesn’t want to continue down.”

Dilly said clarification was needed from the Board of what their desire was because it was affecting a lot of decisions that needed to be made.

“I think it’s important to recognize, it’s impacting our ability to conclude our IEPs (Individualized Education Program) right now as well as personnel season,” Dilly said. “So it’s important that we have a decision made this evening about where these students end up.”

Board member Dr. Phil Chua asked Dilly if having fifth-grade students at middle schools was a common thing in the state. The Superintendent replied, “Yes, absolutely, the most common format is fifth- through eighth-grade throughout the entire state, probably the entire country would be my guess.”

Chua asked, “So what do you need from us tonight, just consensus?”

Dilly replied, “Yeah, just a consensus of what you want us to move forward with, so that we can start finalizing planning around personal impacts and IEPs and all of those things that are impacted by location. So we want to make sure we have a consensus this evening on how to proceed.”

Dilly went on to say, “Based on what I’m gathering, we have the fifth-grade determination at the middle school. The question remains if we want to move the fifth grade to Tygarts Valley.” 

Chua said, “I would be in favor of it if it’s feasible, and both of those schools (Tygarts Valley Middle/High School and George Ward) are in favor of it.”

Ultimately, it was decided by both sides that all of the county’s fifth-grade students would be moved to Elkins Middle School, with the exception of fifth-graders at Tygarts Valley Middle/High School and George Ward, pending approval from school administrators. Dilly told the BOE that he had spoken to Tygarts Valley Middle/High School Principal Steve Wamsley and that he is “ready and willing to receive those students.”

Moving fifth-grade students to the Elkins Middle School was part of the Impact Statement that was approved by the BOE when it voted to close the Harman K-12 School and North Elementary in October 2025 during closure and consolidation hearings.

Students from the two closed schools are being relocated to Jennings Randolph Elementary, Elkins Middle School, and Elkins High School. Fifth-grade students that would have been sent to Jennings Randolph Elementary, will now attend Elkins Middle School.

Earlier in Tuesday’s meeting, during the two sides’ fifth-grade discussion, Dilly shared blueprints with BOE members of some of the necessary changes that would need to be made with the move.

“Audience, I apologize, but I was taught by our safety folks never to share blueprints, so I typically don’t share blueprints out in public just because that is something I’ve always been taught not to do,” Dilly said.

While BOE members looked over the blueprints, Dilly discussed some of the plans in store for Elkins Middle School.

“What I’ve also prepared for you this evening is the middle school plan,” Dilly said. “You can see here that the fifth grade is sort of isolated into particular areas. What the school is looking at proposing was a sort of paired departmentalization so they’d be working amongst those and be largely isolated in the building throughout the majority of the day.”

Collett asked Dilly what type of renovations needed to be done at the middle school.

Dilly said, “At this point it would mainly just be logistics, not construction. I’m not saying that there are not some challenges to overcome, because one of the challenges is the lunch period, trying to determine three periods versus four creates some challenges itself.”

With the move, 190 new students will be added to the student population at Elkins Middle School. Administrators have discussed taking what will be 750 total students and having three lunch periods, with around 255 students per lunch period.

“There are pros and cons, but one of the things I will share, no matter where our fifth grade ends up, our staff will do their best to ensure their (fifth-grade student) welfare is taken care of,” Dilly said. “And I think that is important for our community to understand.”

The next Randolph County Board of Education meeting will be Feb. 17 at 5:30 p.m. at the BOE office.