The week before last, Pendleton County Schools honored retirees from schools and the central office.
Last week, the Pendleton County Board of Education and superintendent said farewell to Wilma Pitsenbarger who was elected to serve out a vacant term on the board.
J. D. Wilkins, board president, announced that “we have a board member who served in their last meeting tonight” and then provided Pitsenbarger with a certificate of appreciation. “Miss Pits,” the nickname under which Pitsenbarger ran to earn the seat, said, “I was figuring up the other day that I have 43 years of teaching under my belt from the time I started in this county and in Highland County [Virginia] combined, and I’m going to try and retire this next year, which gives me 44 years.”
She finished with “so I’ve given 44 years of my life to the kids in this county.”
The meeting opened with the customary invocation by Wilkins, who prayed “Almighty God, as we gather, we thank you for the opportunity to be here representing the people of Pendleton County and we ask that you would bless our decisions that they may serve the students of the county.”
Public comment appeared first on the agenda. Wilkins explained the laws governing public comment in government meetings, noting that the inability of elected officials to respond could be “an awkward piece.”
“So, all we do is listen as you speak,” he said.
Attendees who signed up to speak discussed their perception of how the school handled referrals to Child Protective Services and other accusations. Speakers called the resulting investigations “harassment” and stated that CPS workers claimed that reports came primarily from the school system. They also presented a petition to remove the superintendent with a list of names as signatories.
The board later in the meeting heard the concluding report on attendance for the school year 2025-2026.
“We finished the year in a pretty good place,” reported Carrie Nesselrodt, director of student services. She reported that “all of our schools, except for Brandywine, are higher than they were last year.” Brandywine Elementary School, however, did have exceptionally high numbers in the previous year as well.
She explained that “they had a lot of different things that went through their school this year.”
For average daily attendance in the full school year, Brandywine scored 93.89 percent, Franklin Elementary School 94.69, North Fork Elementary School 94.25, and Pendleton Middle/High School at 92.62, with the county as a whole at 93.69.
Nesselrodt noted the chronic absence rate, when a student misses 10 percent or more of days in the year, of each school and the county. She stated that “ideally we want to be below 10 percent.” The West Virginia Department of Education placed a priority on reducing that statistic this year. BES had a chronic absence rate of 15.3 percent, which Nesselrodt speculated “was just something wonky this year.”
FES “is in a really great place” at 9.4, NFES at 10.6 percent “which is just really, really great” and PCM/HS was at 17.6 percent. High schools typically have more challenges in meeting attendance expectations for a variety of reasons, but Nesselrodt noted that “in 2023 they were at 27 percent” which indicates a 10 percent improvement since.
Nesselrodt stated that the results were “phenomenal,” especially when compared to similar counties struggling with one fourth or more of students chronically absent. Pendleton County Schools has improved attendance significantly in recent years
Board members also heard the year-end enrollment figures. In the count used for State purposes in October, the system had 843, but by the end of the year had lost 15. BES lost most of those through families moving out of state, which likely also affected attendance scores.
BES had 115 by the end of the year, FES 246, NFES 98, and PCM/HS 369. Wilkins pointed out that the BES end of year student population remained somewhat higher than a few years prior. Nesselrodt added that “a lot of our out-of-state families that come in end up at Brandywine . . . we’ve seen a pretty large increase and they are from all over.”
Board members then discussed the developments related to Liberty Community Programs and how they could benefit that area.
Additionally, leases were renewed for the Christian Assistance Network and Tiny Tots Day Care, both renting PCS owned facilities.
Finally, it was decided to table Derek Lambert’s, outgoing PCM/HS principal, proposal for a cost-free weight room facility until a new principal was in place there.
