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Upshur County Schools report early test-score gains as board presses state for oversight clarity
Summary
The Upshur County superintendent presented preliminary test-score gains across grades and said official accountability figures will arrive in September; board members pressed state officials for clearer communication about ongoing oversight and audit issues.
The Upshur County Board of Education heard preliminary student-assessment results and pressed state officials for clearer oversight updates at its July meeting. Superintendent reported across-grade improvements in mathematics and English language arts but said the figures are not yet final for state accountability.
The superintendent told the board the materials provided were an initial look and have not been scrubbed for accountability: "So that's just the first look at test scores at this point." She walked members through cohort scaled-score changes — including a 36-point increase for one third-grade cohort and a 54-point increase for a cohort moving from sixth to seventh grade — and summarized percentage gains in proficiency: a 13.2% increase for grades 3–5 and 24.5% for grades 6–8 in mathematics.
Why it matters: the board remains under partial state oversight, and members said they need specific guidance from the state on what is expected to return full local control. Board member Willie pressed for more information about outstanding audit corrections and cited an example he said he discovered while reviewing his compensation records: "There’s a question of whether all were double paid or not…If all were not double paid, the problem is even worse." Willie also voiced frustration with communication from Charleston: "I feel like a mushroom, and I'm tired of being a mushroom."
The meeting included questions about whether a federal investigation remains open; a board member said, "Nobody knows what the federal investigation is or even if there is one," and asked the state superintendent or state board to provide clarity. The superintendent said she will submit required planner entries to the state and attend the state-board meeting in August, after which state staff are expected to report back to the local board.
The superintendent also noted that the district currently does not have access to all high-school assessment results because of an SAT-system rollover; she reported an 11-point overall increase in SAT scores compared with the prior year but said official high-school data remain pending while system access is restored.
Board members sought more detailed minutes and documentation of substantive discussion, saying plain topic/action minutes understate local involvement. The superintendent said minutes will reflect board actions, motions, resolutions and key decisions and that additional training through the school-board association will be arranged.
The board was scheduled to receive a fuller update from state staff after the superintendent's planner submission and the August state-board meeting; no vote on changes to oversight or authority was taken at this meeting.
