When Seth Distefano presented Kids Count data and geographic facts about Randolph County at Kump Center for the September First Friday Focus on Education, our school problems became clearer.

Seth is proud to be a graduate of Tygart Valley High School, but he understands that his home county has all the economic disadvantages of most remote, rural counties in West Virginia.

The fact that our Randolph County School system ranks 55th among 55 counties in this state is a matter of money — both buildings and buses cost money.

The local average cost of public education is impossibly high for a total population of only 27,600 people in a land area of 1,040 square miles.

We have less than 27 people per square mile in our beautiful rural county. .

To put these numbers in perspective we need to realize that it takes 50 houses to pay for every mile of new internet service. Randolph County is geographically bigger than the state of Rhode Island, but the RI population has 1.112 million people.

In Rhode Island they have more than 40 times as many people as we do in Randolph County to pay for schools and other public services.

Poverty is our local dilemma in more ways than one. According to Kids Count data we have 83 families on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF] in Randolph County. We have 52.5% of our children on Medicaid, and they will have no insurance when Medicaid is defunded in 2027.

If children are hungry and/or ill, they do not do well in school.

We do not have any easy solutions for these problems. The best thing we can do is work with our local Board of Education to find ways to reduce the costs and increase the quality of the learning that is happening in our schools. Pulling students out of the public schools may, or may not help a few students, but it will reduce the quality of what we can provide for the whole population.

The county system gets funding for all the students who attend the public schools, and each time one student leaves, it hurts others in the system. Consolidation is the best choice we have left now.

Last week you may have seen the “Notice of Public Hearings” proposing closure and merger of Harman K-12 School and North Elem School into Jennings Randolph Elementary. Elkins Middle and Elkins High Schools by Randolph County Board of Education.” There will be five hearings:

These times are very confusing in the public notice. See the newspaper notices in October.