Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Emotions ran high at the April 21 Pocahontas County Board of Education meeting when Nathaniel Sizemore, a parent of two 16-year-old sophomores made a request for his sons to be permitted to participate in the robotics team as homeschool students.
Sizemore explained that his sons were taken out of public school and enrolled in homeschool because one of them is currently taking chemotherapy treatments and his doctor said he could not attend school in person.
When a situation like this arises, there are several options parents can choose for their children – homeschool, homebound and proximity online learning. Sizemore said he enrolled his sons in homeschool because the homebound option was not available at the time.
With homebound instruction, the student enrolled in the program is considered a public-school enrollee and gets instruction from a teacher employed by the board of education.
[At the request of this reporter, superintendent of schools Dr. Leatha Williams explained several days after the meeting that at the time of the Sizemore’s request, there was not a homebound instructor in place.
She also added that homebound instruction is only available to students with a medical condition or those who have been expelled, so only one of the Sizemore sons could have been enrolled in the program.
Since the family chose homeschool for the boys, they are not considered public school students; due to a policy about extracurricular activities and homeschool students, the Size- mores would be required to pay a fee for their sons to participate in the robotic team.
This amount is based on the Hope Scholarship, which is given to homeschool students to pay for instruction.
Although the Sizemores are not Hope Scholarship recipients, they would still be required to pay the fee, which is one-seventh of the amount awarded in the Hope Scholarship. It is one-seventh, due to the high school having seven class At the beginning of the meeting, Sizemore had addressed the board during the delegation portion of the agenda. During this time, the board is not allowed to respond to comments, and the speaker is given five minutes to address their issue.
Sizemore shared his concerns that while it is great the state of emergency at Pocahontas County High School has been lifted, there still needs to be changes made to ensure the students are getting the education they deserve.
He said that it will be a great day when the school has the same principal for more than two years and a guidance counselor who will do the job consistently and effectively.
Sizemore added that he and his wife, Hanna, were not treated well when they were trying to set up instruction for their sons after they learned one of the boys needed to take chemotherapy.
Later in the agenda, when it came time to discuss and act on the Sizemore’s request to have their sons participate in robotics, Sizemore asked if he could speak and he was told by board president Emery Grimes that he could not.
“You had five minutes under delegations,” he said. “If you knew this was on the agenda, that’s what you should have spent your five minutes doing, because this is not a meeting of the board of education and the public, this is a meeting of the board of education.”
Williams reiterated that the boys will be allowed to participate if the family pays the fee and added that the school system wants all the students in the county to attend school in person.
“The whole goal of this is to ask our non-public school students to reenroll in our school system,” she said. “We want as many kids in our school system as possible. We want all of our kids in our community in our school, and we welcome them all back.”
Sizemore did speak up and say his sons are homeschooled because there was no other option at the time and the change needed to be expedited for the health of his son.
“My son is only homeschooled because there was no other option at the time, including a homebound instructor that we needed,” he said. “My son started chemotherapy the day after his sixteenth birthday.
“The entire fee – no prorating, no waiving, no considerations – you’re asking me to pay the entire fee for, effectively, a month-and-a-half of instruction, possibly two days a week,” he added.
“We’ve done the same thing for everybody,” board member Andrew “Frosty” McNabb said.
McNabb then heatedly addressed Sizemore, alleging that Sizemore rolled his eyes when Williams said they welcome the students back to the school system with open arms.
“When you’re sitting here and you’re asking us to do something to go above and beyond, and whenever Dr. Williams said, ‘why don’t you put your kids back in school, you roll your eyes,” he said. “What do you think that does for us?”
“It’s not safe for them,” Sizemore replied.
McNabb then raised his voice louder and chastised Sizemore for saying the board is not doing its due diligence during his delegation.
“It’s because of the previous administration,” he said. “We’ve changed. You stood up here at the podium and said, ‘there’s no change.’ Do you tune in to every meeting? We’ve got a new superintendent. We’ve got three new directors. We’ve got new principals. We’re going to try to find another principal.
“I get tired of hearing this at every meeting I go to, I get tired of it,” he continued. “No transparency. We put everything out everywhere we can. Newsletters, the radio station, all this stuff. The question got asked at Hillsboro about this. The question was, ‘do you tune in to watch every board meeting?’ Then you’re at fault, not us. The information is out there.
“People want to sit back and complain, but they don’t want to step forward and be present,” McNabb added. “That’s why you vote. I’m sorry I went off. It’s not personal. I just get tired of hearing it.”
Later, during the matters for the board portion of the agenda, Grimes asked Sizemore to explain further how he was mistreated when trying to find an option for his sons’ educations. Sizemore said the family chose homeschool as it was the only option at the time that worked with the medical situation his one son is facing.
Sizemore said he personally dislikes homeschool because he is not a teacher and it renewed his gratitude to the teachers in the county who are providing an education to the students. He added that he wanted to apologize to the board for speaking negatively at the beginning of the meeting and said he understands that they are trying to make changes for the better.
After the discussion, the board approved for the Sizemore boys to participate in the robotics program if they pay the $1,500 fee.
In miscellaneous management, the board approved:
• the final reading of Proposed Policy Revision 3433: Vacation.
• fundraisers and out of county, out of state and overnight field trips.
