By: Jennifer Britt
The Parsons Advocate
The Tucker County School Board of Education meeting started with a moment of silence in memory of Dr. Roy Moss. Moss was the Superintendent for Tucker County Schools from 1979 to 1986. Board President Daniel “Chopper” Evans said, “He went from homeroom school teacher, to counselor, to psychiatrist for the school, and then Superintendent for the county.”
Superintendent Alicia Lambert reported that students were conducting benchmark testing for the second nine weeks and the results should be available at the next school board meeting. Lambert also mentioned that students have requested to extend the after-school program. Lambert said, “We have had this request from students and we were trying to do some surveys because we were not going to be able to run buses for it this time because of all the extra-curriculars going on and buses going in multiple directions. Which is why we usually do not start it back up until March when the seasons have concluded, but students were really asking for it.”
Lambert explained that there was a questionnaire passed out to the students for parents to complete as to whether the parents could provide transportation for their student. At first there were only 12 responses received online at the school board office but upon further discussion with school principals it was discovered that many others had responded on written forms to the schools. Lambert stated that it has officially started the program back up. Currently there will be only one English and one math teacher at each school until the actual number of students staying after is calculated.
Lambert said, “We are hopeful. I think it speaks volumes that our students are asking for after school. Whether that be because we are coming to the end of the semester and some of them are struggling and did not want to take credit recovery classes, or they just knew they needed the help. Whatever it means I am happy that they want that and that we are in a financial position where we can afford that right now. That is not always the case for us. So, while we have that available to us we want to do whatever we can to help our kids be successful in the classroom.”
The board approved a trip to Phoenix, Arizona on March 21-25, 2023, for Lambert to meet with Grand Canyon University. The purpose of the trip is to address teacher shortage in the state of West Virginia. Lambert said, “This was requested to me last week. They are looking for rural counties because it is an online platform and there a lot of people that want to extend their education but are not able to get to colleges and get the course work because of where we live.”
Lambert explained the idea is to extend the online platform and make that more beneficial for teachers to expand their degrees or people to obtain their initial teaching licenses. She said more information would be available once she completed the trip with five others from the West Virginia Association of School Administrators (WVASA).
The board members then went into executive session to discuss personnel matters and upon returning to regular session the action to accept the resignation of Neil Kisamore II, Principal at DTEMS, effective February 28 was presented by Lambert. The vote was spilt four to accept to one against with board member Cathy Hebb being the one vote against. It was voted also to acccept the action presented that Kisamore remain on as Substitute Teacher for the remainder of the school year.
The resignation of Melissa Taushcher the ALC Coordinator/Instructor effective January 27 was also presented by Lambert and received a vote of four to one as well. Again, Hebb was the one vote against.
The next meeting of the Tucker County Board of Education will be held on February 6, 2023, at 4:30 p.m. and located in the Tucker County Board of Education office at 100 Education Lane, Parsons, West Virginia 26287.