Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Education Enrollment Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Superintendent warns of falling enrollment and discipline issues, estimates roughly $10.1 million revenue shortfall
Summary
The superintendent told the Upshur County Board of Education that benchmark results, discipline rates and an enrollment drop of 186 students have created instructional concerns and an estimated combined revenue loss of about $10.1 million; the district will pursue audits, attendance initiatives and instructional reviews.
The Upshur County superintendent told the Board of Education that early benchmark data and discipline statistics point to instructional weaknesses across the district and a budgetary shortfall tied to declining enrollment.
At the meeting the superintendent summarized the district’s beginning-of-year i-Ready diagnostic for grades K–8 and said results were mixed, with some grades showing increases in students requiring intervention and others showing declines. The superintendent said the district will inspect instructional rigor and classroom practices and begin school audits to identify mismatches between classroom grades and assessed learning.
The superintendent also presented discipline figures from August through November, saying the system recorded 112 out-of-school suspension days and 186 in-school suspension days. “If students are not in the class receiving that instruction, they’re not getting what they need to be able to perform at the levels that we expect them to,” the superintendent said.
On enrollment, the superintendent reported certified enrollment of 3,389, a drop of 186 students from the prior year. The superintendent provided counts for related categories: 269 homeschool students, 223 virtual students and 121 students using the HOPE scholarship; the superintendent noted these groups can overlap and said combining the declines and program counts produced a total of 576 students affecting funding calculations. Using the state balanced scorecard per-student figure of $12,005.70, the superintendent estimated the resulting financial impact at about $6,915,282.20 on student-related funding and, when adding an absence of an excess levy (approximately $3,200,000), estimated a total system loss of approximately $10,115,282.20.
Board members asked clarifying questions about the virtual-student count, including whether the 223 virtual students are 100% remote or include students taking some virtual courses while attending school for other programs. The superintendent responded that the certified count does include students who are 100% virtual for academics even if they attend technical training at Fred Eberly for career coursework; the superintendent said the certified enrollment procedure includes all students and that virtual enrollments influence the state’s professional personnel calculations.
The superintendent said the district will take several immediate steps: auditing schools for instructional practices, emphasizing implementation fidelity for PACS and positive behavior interventions, sharing substitute-cost data with the board, and participating in a two-day attendance workshop in Morgantown in November. The presentation concluded with a reminder that staff will return updated data and proposals to the board for personnel planning and budget discussions.
The board did not take formal budget action at the meeting; the superintendent said policy and staffing decisions will be informed by upcoming audits and enrollment monitoring and that the board will consider policy revisions at the December meeting.
