Pocahontas County Schools’ state of emergency update; progress is being made
By Autumn Shelton, RealWV
CHARLESTON, WV – Pocahontas County’s new superintendent, Dr. Leatha Williams, appeared before members of the West Virginia Board of Education (BOE) on Wednesday, to discuss her plan to move the county out of a state of emergency.
In February, the BOE placed Pocahontas County Schools in a state of emergency for deficiencies found at Pocahontas County High School. Those deficiencies were identified after a special circumstances review found issues regarding leadership, grading practices, special education, and counseling services.
According to Williams, who began her position on July 1, following the retirement of Lynne Bostic, she has developed a professional development plan and has identified numerous ways to help move the county forward, along with the assistance of support liaison Deirdre Cline.
The first area addressed, Williams said, includes the development of a Comprehensive School Counseling Plan.
“That plan has been completed and we have reviewed it extensively,” Williams said. “We have looked at all of our data, which includes attendance data, and that is a focus in our Comprehensive School Counseling Plan this year. We would like to decrease our chronic absentee rate by five percent because we believe that is essential. Students have to be at school to learn.”
Attendance has been a major concern in Pocahontas County – with a chronic absentee rate of 53% at Pocahontas County High School.
“We had 138 students chronically absent of 260,” Williams said, noting that her plan to decrease the absentee rate by five percent has been recommended by other professionals.
“I feel it should be around 25%, but at the same time, I don’t want to be too pushy when I know we are going to meet the goal anyway,” Williams said.
Additionally, Williams said that communication will take place with students to identify the reasons behind their chronic absences.
To address the county’s difficulty with recruiting and retaining counselors, Williams explained an alternative approach to solving this problem.
“We are going to look at establishing a supervisor of counseling services and adding deans to a couple of our schools, and having a certified counseling supervisor to supervise those deans,” Williams said.
Further, Williams stated that to help develop a student-driven master schedule, the county will establish a timeline for when personalized education plans should begin, as well as set benchmarks for completion rates. This should ensure all plans at the middle and high schools will be complete by mid-January.
To assist educators with ensuring that proper transcription of grades is occurring, a Director of Personnel and Technology position has been established, Williams said. This will ensure that educators have a contact person to assist with WVEIS and to make sure all grades are transcribed at mid-term and end-of-year.
Another area of compliance that is being addressed, according to Williams, has been the creation of central office support for principals.
“One of the things that I have put in place, at the beginning of the year, is we have already had a principals’ academy,” Williams said. “During that principals’ academy, we trained our principals on the West Virginia Standards for Effective Schools and calibrated our understanding of what schools need in place to be effective.”
Principals also received training on how to work with parents, team building, the LSIC process, data security, and special education, Williams said, adding that all of the county’s IEP plans will be audited so they may be updated prior to October 3.
There will be a separate teachers academy to assist educators with numerous skills, including team building, IEP essentials and special education monitoring, Williams said.
Finally, Williams said that she would like to expand the CTE program in the county.
“I would like to see a JROTC added to that program because we do have many students that go into the military,” Williams said. “We are fortunate to have a local community hospital so I would like to see something with nursing and phlebotomy to add into that.”
Williams also said she would like to add a program to CTE that would help students who wish to enter the beef industry, calling that an “untapped resource” in southern West Virginia.
Following Williams’ presentation, and after reviewing a list of improvements being made at Pocahontas County High School, the BOE voted to extend the state of emergency for six more months, noting that tremendous work is being accomplished.
An updated report detailing additional progress in Pocahontas County will be made before the BOE in February.
