“Almighty God, as we gather, we thank you for the opportunity to be here, and we thank you for everybody that’s here. We ask a blessing on everybody that’s here, and we ask a blessing on our discussion and our decisions tonight.”
J. D. Wilkins, Pendleton County Board of Education president, opened the second regular meeting of September with the customary invocation. Next, Nicole Hevener, superintendent, recognized staff and student achievements.
“I’m excited to stand before you as the new ag teacher at Pendleton County High School,” shared Zachary Tennant, who brought to the meeting “four of the next budding conservationists in our world. This is our land judging and home site evaluation team.” He added that “Mr. (Ron) Hudson kind of got them started and got them interested in soil, and how it impacts agriculture and can impact agriculture for years to come. He laid down a great foundation.”
In May the team, which included Katie Heavner, Katie Keyser, Ty Heavner and Alex Adams, was named regional champion for “both land judging and home site evaluation.”
As Tennant explained, “Land judging is all about the best productive use for the land in terms of agriculture. They evaluate things like erosion, slope, permeability, and its impact on agriculture or lack thereof. Between that and the home site contest they’re utilizing those same factors that they learned about in land judging.” He went on to state that “for home site development, it’s a lot of numbers. The numbers gained there that they had to do a little bit of memorizing for land judging and home site go up against 12 other teams from across the state of West Virginia.”
Competition took place in July at the Cedar Lakes Conference Center near Ripley. Out of 23 teams that have competed from PCM/HS, this was the first to qualify for national level competition.
The team will go next to Oklahoma for the national event. Tennant stated that he hopes they will “learn about conservation and best practices for agriculture, that we can bring back to Pendleton County and hopefully get to talk to you about some more soil science and conservation again in May or June and maybe have some hardware with us too.”
Individually, Ty Heavner earned first place in the state large tractor driving competition for the second year in a row and will also go to nationals. Heavner is the second Pendleton County student to qualify for national competition in tractor driving. Tennant stated that Heavner would miss the Treasure Mountain Festival, “but we’re excited to see how he does in Springfield, [Massachusetts].”
J. P. Mowery, chief financial officer and treasurer, then provided his report. He noted that the special Permanent Improvement Fund established under Charles Hedrick, former superintendent, now has $350,000 in it. Hedrick established the fund when Pendleton County Schools reached a good financial foundation. Seven years ago when COVID-era assistance came to PCS, it was decided to set back $50,000 per year to serve as a fund to address one-time needs. Mowery explained that it could be used for matching funds or to pay for entire projects, but “Obviously, we don’t want to see it disappear at any one time.”
He added that fiscal year 2026 ended with “a healthy fund balance” which carried over $1.821 million.
Mowery went on to share various expenses, noting that student transportation topped $2 million for the first time ever. Rising fuel costs and declining mechanical reliability squeezed transportation funding from both ends in the past year. He also shared that declines in funding for Communities in Schools, as well as a $!50,000 reduction of 1,400 floor money and some small federal sources might force PCS “to step back a bit” in terms of financial position, but still remain strong in terms of state expectations.
He then warned that with scrutiny paid to financial problems in Harrison and Hancock counties, and elsewhere, that the state could inquire about reasons if PCS financial position continued to decline over years. Then Mowery shared some potential good news, stating that “Charleston’s going try to get us some money in legislature for special ed staffing. I think that’s a real possibility . . . You know, the sky is not falling, but we certainly have to pay attention to what’s going on.”
Larry Pack, West Virginia state treasurer, last Wednesday in Petersburg shared that there will also be a significant push within the West Virginia State legislature to fully fund Communities In Schools and also raise teacher salaries within discussions of more comprehensive funding changes.
It was also shared that Pendleton County Schools had lost student population again this year, partly to Grant County, partly to virtual schooling.
Officials then discussed the impact of the HOPE Scholarship and its ability to draw students from the traditional school system by allowing parents to access a certain share of funding to pay for alternative educational models. At the conclusion, board members approved joining the multi-district lawsuit against the West Virginia State Legislature. The lawsuit advocates that the State abide by funding discrepancies identified in the 20th-century Recht Decision. That West Virginia case ordered that discrepancies between more and less affluent school districts be rectified, but the order was never carried out and the judge himself closed the case in frustration due to inaction.
In the attendance report, Carrie Nesselrodt stated that “we are starting out with our first month with higher numbers than we had during the first month of last year whenever I went back to compare.” North Fork Elementary School’s fifth grade had the best attendance for individual school grades. They set a 100 percent mark with every child in the grade attending every day for the first month of school.
Fifth grade was tops overall with Brandywine Elementary School posting the top attendance for schools with more than 97 percent.
