Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
At the August 4 Pocahontas County Board of Education meeting, superintendent Dr. Leatha Williams gave a report on a recent meeting she had with the head coaches for Pocahontas County sports. At the meeting, the coaches, Williams and director of personnel and preschool Chloe Shauffner and secondary principals were in attendance to discuss the upcoming school year.
The coaches went through training and provided input about what they need for the future.
“Each team has requested an additional one-dollar coach assistant,” Williams said. “The high school folks said this would help them maintain the embedded credit documentation. If they have someone that they could assign to that and also someone they could assign to checking students out after contests when they are away from the school system, that would be a big help.”
The embedded credit is new in which students receive a physical education credit for participating in sports and other extracurricular activities such as marching band.
In addition to making the recommendation to the board to approve the $1 coaches, Williams also made a recommendation concerning the recently hired assistant principal/supervisor of CTE at Pocahontas County High School, Stephen Martin.
Williams said that in the interview with Martin, he explained that not only was he the CTE supervisor at Cabell-Midland High School, he was also the athletic director. With that noted, Williams said she asked Martin if he would take on the athletic director duties at PCHS, as well.
“He said he would be interested in being our athletic director and he is willing to pick up the responsibilities,” Williams said. “We talked about how there are events that have to occur over holidays and weekends, so we would like to add twenty additional workdays to his calendar to help with that and the supplement for the athletic director right now is $6,000. We would like to offer him an additional $3,000 as a supplement.”
Williams also asked the board to pay for all transportation costs for all sporting events out of the general fund and to allow her to post two athletic director positions for the county’s two middle schools.
After a discussion in which board members questioned if there was room in the budget for the additional costs, the board approved to have Martin serve as athletic director on a probationary period and have him mentor the two middle school ADs when they are hired.
The board also approved the $1 coach assistants for all athletics and to fund the transportation.
In updates:
• Williams shared information about the reentry to school for students who were expelled. She shared a form the students must fill out and explained that it is up to her discretion if the student is allowed to come back earlier than originally set by the expulsion.
In some instances, Williams said the students must be expelled for the full time given by the policy. This is in direct correlation with the offense for which the student was expelled.
All expelled students still receive education services so they do not fall behind, but they are not allowed on school premises and cannot attend extracurricular events.
• Nature’s Mountain Classroom Director Tracey Valach gave a presentation on the program for the upcoming school year. She shared the schedule and welcomed all the board members to attend any of the events they can.
The students will again get their outdoor education in skiing, hiking, kayaking and snorkeling, and mountain biking, along with going on several field trips, depending on the grade level.
This year, Valach is excited to report that sixth and seventh grade students are reading “River Rocks,” written by West Virginia native Steve Kittner. Kittner is slated to visit the students during their overnight adventure in October.
In old business, the board approved the following:
• Proposed policy revisions, second reading of policies 9270 – Home Instruction and 2371 – Hope Scholarship.
In new business, the board approved the following:
• Memorandum of Understanding for Nature’s Mountain Classroom and the calendar of events.
• Memorandum of Understanding with Marshall University and the Level Up WV program.
• Memorandum of Understanding with New River Community and Technical College and the Level Up WV program.
• Memorandum of Understanding between Green Bank Elementary-Middle School and Green Bank Observatory to operate a wireless scoreboard.
• Permission for the resolution from the board for authorization for Grant Smiths and the matching funds for the COPS grant application.
• to post for a $1 coach for volleyball.
• to post for a part-time gifted teacher.
• Federal guidance to adjust standard mileage travel reimbursement from .725 to .76.
The personnel agenda will be in next week’s edition of The Pocahontas Times.
