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ELKINS – Representatives from Elkins Middle School gave the Randolph County Board of Education a presentation concerning the county’s fifth-grade students moving to the school.
At the request of the BOE, EMS principal Dawn Kittle and staff members Amy Lambert and Tiffany Hymes provided information about the shift.
In February, it was made official that fifth-grade students will be moving from their respective elementary schools to Elkins Middle School at the start of this coming school year, on Aug. 19.
Moving fifth-grade students to EMS 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.
Kittle gave an information presentation that detailed everything involved with the transformation. She showed the BOE where the fifth-grade rooms would be located via a map on PowerPoint.
Kittle pointed out that there will be six fifth-grade classrooms at the school, four on the first floor and two on the second. The fifth-grade classrooms are located at each end of the building, and four of the rooms have connecting inside doors to one another.
“We are going to departmentalize, so like I did when I was a fifth-grade teacher, I had a buddy teacher,” Kittle said. “I taught all the Math, Science and Health, and then my buddy teacher taught English and Social Studies, and the kids switched. So, that’s still the plan, and they are not switching about the building, and the classrooms are right next to one another.”
Fifth-grade students at EMS will have their own bell and recess schedule, and they will share lunch with some of the school’s sixth graders. Intervention resources will also be available to fifth-grade students.
Kittle told the BOE there are not enough lockers in the school for all the students, so incoming fifth-graders will keep their items in their homerooms.
“That isn’t going to have those fifth-grade students out in the hallways where lockers are, and have that stress of trying combinations and things like that,” Kittle said. “They will have their belongings right there with them in their homeroom.”
Board member Denise Campbell commented that the transformation is a big change for fifth-grade parents, students and teachers. She asked Kittle, “How do we show our community, our parents, our students the best organization that we possibly can? I know that sixth grade is scary enough, and now we have got fifth grade… If you had like this wish list for support, what would extra support look like to you that would help the process?”
Kittle said, “We do have our back to school nights and I’ve laid them out separately so fifth grade’s coming one night by themselves and sixth grade comes on a night by themselves… The plan for the first day of school, what we have always done, is that the sixth graders go to the gym and then we call them out by their home room, and they get with their homeroom teacher, so that they are being guided. We are going to do the same thing for the fifth grade… My plan is to put the fifth graders in the cafeteria and have the fifth-grade teacher come and pick them up there.”
Kittle told Campbell that there will be staff at the car drop-off locations and at the front doors. She said staff would be at their doors in the hallways greeting students, as well.
“Any teacher who doesn’t have a homeroom, they’re assigned in the hallways and they are going to be there to guide students where they need to go,” Kittle said. “Usually county office people have somebody come, I don’t know who is assigned to my school this year, but there’s usually someone from the county office there to help support as well.”
Board member Randy Long praised Kittle and her team for preparing EMS for the transformation.
“I want to commend you, I think you have put a lot of hard work and a lot of thought into what you’ve done,” Long said. “I think you have got it together up there and I think you are going to have a good start. You have your rooms set up nicely where there’s no way they could get lost… So I just want to commend you on what you’ve done, and a lot of people have had concerns about this transition. I think you’ve got it together and it’s going to work out well.”
The next regular Board of Education meeting will be Aug. 18 at 5:30 p.m.