This coming Friday we plan to have our second “First Friday Focus on Education” gathering in the Learning Lab at Kump Education Center, 401 S. Randolph Avenue across from Kroger at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, March 7.

We hope to develop more understanding of problems that impede progress in our schools and find practical solutions to these problems that we will identify with the help of a special guest from the WV Center for Budget and Policy.

Our Feb. 7, group included parents, grandparents, and teachers who agreed that we needed to increase regular communication between the public school system and concerned citizens. We discussed issues such as academic performance, attendance, busing, consolidation, funding formulas, teacher attrition, and teacher workday scheduling.

At the last Randolph County School Board meeting, there was a feeling of desperation in the room, and the crowd trailed out into the hallway. I was glad that the Board decided to cancel spring break and recover instructional time lost during snow days; however, other decisions that board members must consider are not as easy to describe or to decide.

When the federal government ends the Department of Education, what will happen to the 24% of our local students who need Special Education interventions? What will we do if we lose Title I funding giving remedial help to students who did not learn to read during the Covid-19 Pandemic? How will children get to school if we cannot pay enough to hire bus drivers? Randolph County is not the only place in West Virginia that is experiencing these difficulties, but we do have the largest land area for buses to cover, and we have a small taxable population to pay these all bills.

Better teacher pay is the budget item that is most often left out of serious considerations, but it is the one thing that might really make the most difference for the academic success of our students. Instead of doing more for teachers, our Board of Education has to decide what positions to cut and how to reduce the cost and quality of the teachers that we can employ.

In the last few weeks I have heard from another West Virginian who is concerned about education. Sarah Duncan works as a Public Education Coordinator at the WV Center for Budget and Policy. She contacted me after reading my op-ed on rural schools, and she will attend our March 7 First Friday Focus on Education meeting. She will help us understand the confusing choices in the funding formulas for public schools now that we have the WV School Choice “grab bag.”

I hope this young mother and former art teacher will help us develop creative ideas that will make educational opportunities better for her children, my grandchildren and all West Virginia students.