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Dr. Miller urges stronger oversight of homeschooling notices and tighter Hope Scholarship guardrails
Summary
At the Ohio County Schools board meeting Dr. Miller asked the board to seek changes to the state's compulsory attendance/home-schooling procedures — including requiring a phone number on notices and wider student assessment — and called for stronger accountability and limits on the Hope Scholarship, citing state budget projections.
Dr. Miller, speaking at the Ohio County Schools board meeting, urged the board to press for changes to how homeschooling and the Hope Scholarship are handled in West Virginia, saying the district needs better tools to ensure student safety and public-school fiscal stability.
"We are requesting that notice of intent include a phone number," Dr. Miller told the board, noting that the current compulsory-attendance language requires families who homeschool to file a notice of intent, a curriculum outline, the person providing instruction and assessments in a limited set of grades but does not require contact information that would help the district monitor student welfare. She asked that assessment requirements be expanded from tests only in grades 3, 5, 8 and 11 to assessments across K–11 and that districts be notified when a homeschooled child moves to another county or state.
Why it matters: Dr. Miller said the changes are intended to keep children safe and to allow Ohio County Schools to exercise its statutory responsibilities. She also criticized the state’s Hope Scholarship program, arguing that the voucher-style aid shifts operating dollars away from public schools and lacks sufficient accountability. Citing data she said came from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, Dr. Miller warned of sizable projected impacts on school funding if the program expands.
Dr. Miller and a board member discussed numbers from an outside analysis; Dr. Miller summarized those figures in broad terms, saying the district could be losing hundreds of millions in the coming years and that, if that money were reinvested, it might fund teacher raises, additional school psychologists and counselors, and other student supports. She proposed specific accountability measures for private and micro-schools that accept Hope funds, including an annual state test administration and public reporting of results similar to public schools’ disclosure.
Board reaction and next steps: Board members asked clarifying questions but took no formal legislative action at the meeting. Chair Bernie Croft said the board will continue to monitor state policy and will bring related agenda items forward as needed. No formal motion to adopt a local position on the Hope Scholarship was recorded.
Quotes used in this article derive from the board meeting transcript and the speaker list maintained with the board. The figures Dr. Miller cited were attributed in the meeting to the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy; the article reports those projections as presented to the board rather than as independently verified.
