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Superintendent proposes policy to use HOPE Scholarship funds to cover course and activity fees
Summary
Dr. Paul Cook told the board he is preparing a policy to implement West Virginia Code 18-31-8 requiring schools to charge HOPE Scholarship recipients for academic course fees and extracurricular participation; he proposed specific per-period fractions and $500 caps for clubs and sports and asked permission to work with Neola and legal counsel on a formal draft and public comment process.
Dr. Paul Cook presented a proposed district policy to implement West Virginia Code 18-31-8, which he said requires schools to charge students who receive HOPE Scholarship funds for academic course fees, athletics participation and extracurricular activities.
Cook summarized the law and explained two key terms: "may" (discretion) and "shall" (mandatory obligations). He told the board he intends to work with the district's policy vendor Neola and legal counsel to develop a draft policy and to bring it back for public comment. "This is the law," Cook said, "...in this law, it says, shall charge people receiving the Hope Scholarship for classes that they wanna take for, athletics that they wanna participate for extracurriculars like band to be in a club...we have to charge them that amount." Cook proposed using per-period fractions shown in the transcript (0.125 for Brooke High School and 0.143 for Brooke Middle School) and a $500 per club or per sport-season cap.
Cook noted administrative uncertainty about procedures for collecting HOPE funds and setting up district bank accounts for those funds, saying staff were working with a bank to allow money to be drawn from HOPE accounts. The transcript contains a numerical passage that appears garbled when read aloud (rendered as "about $700,114 dollars and 29¢"); the district did not provide an alternate per-period dollar amount during the meeting. Cook sought permission to proceed with drafting and to return a formal proposed policy for board consideration and public comment.
Board members took no formal vote on the policy at the meeting; Cook said he will present a draft at a future board meeting after working with Neola and counsel.
