In early August Randolph County Board of Education had a visit from state Board of Education efficiency experts explaining why our county has Emergency status now. Our BOE must create a plan to trim the RCS budget over the next five years or the State will take over the management of our schools.

Alexandra Criner, Director of the WVDE Office of Accountability, suggested that the local board form a collaborative leadership team to work with Superintendent Dilly in order to create a plan for consolidation of county schools by December 2025. I believe this leadership team should include a parent from every local school in the county and several representatives from our local business community and state Senator Robbie Morris who leads the Randolph County Development Authority.

This emergency is not a simple school board efficiency problem because it involves every family with school age children in the county. Now with new “School Choice” legislation, WV parents have the option of removing their children from public schools and using state vouchers for private or home schooling. This change makes it impossible to predict how many schools will be needed in five years, and where these schools should be located. Clearly the school-age population is declining across the world, and most especially in West Virginia.

Now public schools must win the hearts and minds of parents as they decide how to educate their own children in the current political climate. An online “Survey for Community Input on Randolph County School Closures” reflects efficiency considerations about the declining number of classrooms and teachers needed now, but this survey does not leave many desirable choices for any local community.

Nothing is said in the survey about academic achievement, child development, or parent engagement in the decision-making process. To the average person the idea of building new schools when we are closing so many schools seems illogical. Of course, we will need a bigger middle school if we move all 4th and 5th grade students along with 6th, 7th and 8th graders in one middle school.

However, the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students might benefit academically from being in a good program for the intermediate grades. Educators know that test scores have declined after the pandemic, and children need more support to develop basic reading and math skills before they go to secondary schools.

Now, if WV middle schools will be required to allow a student athlete to be paid for “Name, Image, and Likeness” [NIL], the academic issues may get much less attention. Fifth-grade students are only ten years old, and they do not need to be under such economic and social pressures.

If the Randolph County school board wants to engage parents in the process of making decisions for schools or to pass any school levies, there needs to be at least one meeting in every school this fall to allow local people to voice concerns, and each school should have an active local school advisory committee. If public schools plan to compete with the “Hope Scholarship,” all public schools should become public charter schools where parents support the school mission and engage early in each decision-making process.