ELKINS – The Randolph County Board of Education will vote at its next meeting on whether or not to have the West Virginia School Board Association help with its search for a new county superintendent.

The BOE met in a special board meeting this week for a work session with Dr. Howard O’Cull, the Executive Director of the state School Board Association. The session focused on training and guidelines for the appointment and selection of a new superintendent of Randolph County Schools.

Dr. Shawn Dilly unexpectedly resigned as the superintendent on March 20. The next day, the BOE hired Terry George to be the interim superintendent through June 30.

During this week’s meeting, BOE President Rachel Burns recommended working with the state School Board Association, noting Randolph County had used the association during its last superintendent search, which resulted in Dilly being hired.

“I’m gonna go right out and say that my vote is to have the West Virginia School Board, the WVSBA’s structured approach,” Burns said. “It was really nice to basically get that excel spreadsheet (during the last search)… (board member) Janie (Newlon) and I have been through it a lot unfortunately, and honestly otherwise, it’s a lot of work for our county Board Office. You guys (the WVSBA) do it, you do it well.”

George requested that the BOE put what it wanted to do on the agenda for its next regular meeting, which is scheduled for Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.

“We can put an agenda item on Tuesday night and Dr. O’Cull, you don’t even have to be here,” George said. “They can vote to employ you (the WVSBA) to do the search, and to set a price for advertising. I would put it on the agenda for Tuesday night. I think it’s a wise choice for you folks, to be honest.”

O’Cull said that he and the Association would contact George and the BOE about fees for the service.

“When I go in tomorrow, I will have something to Mr. George and the Board about the fees, so that everybody knows what the fees will be and will set it a little bit above that,” O’Cull said. “Then we’ll just start with the rest of it, once you get ready to go and get your notice of position vacancy done, which could be sent to us by the Central Office.”

Anger said a plan was in place, and asked the BOE members to speak up if they were not comfortable with the plan.

“We’ve got a plan for Tuesday for the advertising budget and the approval for the work as voting items,” Burns said. “We’ll do that, you know, formally at that time and if any of you guys (BOE members) are not comfortable with that, now is the time to speak out… Then we will let Howard start rolling with stuff.”

Earlier in the meeting, O’Cull told the BOE that a new superintendent had to be in place by June 1.

“Under law, a county board must by law have the county superintendent’s tenure, how long their term is, one year to four years, and their basic salary consulted and that has to be completed by June 1 of 2026,” O’Cull said. “That is a state law and it’s also verified by state board policy as well.”

O’Cull also pointed out that clerical items make up most of the workload in conducting a superintendent search.

“There’s a lot of clerical things, like getting copies of applications, setting up the interviews, getting questions for interviews, notice of position vacancy, advertising, and so on,” O’Cull said.