By Stephen Smoot
As the Pendleton County Board of Education and superintendent had good news to share about advances in state metrics, they also saw the loss of one of the county’s most experienced and dedicated head coaches.
With J. D. Wilkins away, Sonny O’Neil filled in as president and gave the invocation. He thanked God for the county and the school system’s superior staff.
The first item on the agenda was to accept the resignation of Charles Burgoyne, the seven-year head coach of the high and middle school’s golf program. The former school board member and county commissioner also made a personal statement to explain the state created barriers to his continuing to coach.
“Thank you for the opportunity to speak what’s on my mind,” Burgoyne started.
He started by stating that he resigned as of the day prior to the meeting, then shared his academic background, holding degrees in health and physical education. Research conducted during his time in school included a major paper on muscular movements in playing the sport of golf.
Burgoyne then described how, seven years ago, he approached O’Neil to ask if the high school could have a golf team. The response was “yes, if it doesn’t cost money.” In building the team, then the program, Burgoyne collected countless donations from individuals and businesses while working out an agreement for players to practice and compete, with adult supervision, at Fisher Mountain.
Although Burgoyne’s 1975 degree was one specifically designed for coaching and he also had 25 years of officiating experience, the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission stated that the degree was “too old” to give him certification, so he took a costly 14 and a half hour course to obtain it.
He then described a pattern of the West Virginia State Legislature adding more and more training and certification requirements, taking more and more time and money from coaches who, in many cases, have little of either. Most of these came as reactions to very rare, but tragic circumstances.
Burgoyne explained that “if you take a look at anything on this list, it’s not bad. It’s just a lot.”
One of the examples he gave came from a statute called “Megan’s Law” that came after a legislator’s child developed an eating disorder after being told she was too heavy to be at the top of a cheerleading formation. Burgoyne said that trainings related to incidents such as these came from those “looking for something to blame.”
Burgoyne shared that after tragic deaths of an athlete and a coach in football that “now the point of emphasis is CPR.” That said, he admitted that he was passed in the CPR course even though he could not physically perform the procedure. He quipped that he would be more likely to need CPR than to give it.
He went on to say that cross country and track coach Mary Beth Hebb works as registered nurse, but still is mandated to take the required health and safety trainings. Overall, not just in coaching, Burgoyne said, “They get carried away with putting mandates on teachers and school systems.”
He then moved on to another subject, which is the utility of buying 10 passenger transport vans for smaller team road trips. With school bus drivers in short supply, it would be easier to find drivers who do not need CDLs. He also said that the program needed three coaches to cover matches and practices for both the high and middle school squads.
Finally, Burgoyne praised those who helped to make their team fundraiser at Fisher Mountain, which raised approximately $9,000, a success. He concluded with the statement that he wanted to leave the program in good shape for the next coaches. O’Neill added that he was “leaving it better than when he found it.”
During the financial and treasurer’s report section of the meeting, Charles Hedrick, superintendent, in the absence of J. P. Mowery, treasurer, shared that the county enjoyed its highest total cash on hand amount ever, $3,342,562.82. He added that the alt ed building was nearing completion and that they hoped to hold classes in it soon.
Carrie Nesselrodt then delivered the attendance report for the second month of the school year. The top individual grade percentage came from third grade in Brandywine Elementary School at 98.571 percent. Franklin Elementary School enjoyed the best attendance as a school at 95.605 percent. Fourth grade earned top honors across the county for best attendance at 97.211 percent.
Overall, the county had a 94.037 percent attendance. Nesselrodt shared that in each category, 95 percent and above remained the goal to achieve.
Next Nesselrodt discussed an issue that the state as a whole has focused on in recent years, chronic absences. Here, the State says that five percent or less exceeds expected standards, five to 10 percent meets them, 15 to 20 percent partially meets, and above 20 percent does not meet standard.
After day 40, Pendleton County has a whole had a 14.64 percent chronic absence rate. Brandywine Elementary had 11.30 percent, Franklin 9.27 percent, North Fork 10.68 percent, and Pendleton County Middle/High School had 20.16 percent. PCMHS, however, saw a five percentage point improvement over earlier in the year.
Nesselrodt explained that Communities in Schools had placed extra emphasis on working with students on the chronic absence list, helping them set goals to get off of it and identifying barriers to attendance. She said that CIS always plays a supportive and never a punitive role.
“That doesn’t make sense,” O’Neil commented when Nesselrodt explained that chronic absences included excused ones, even for illness. He added, “It’s strange to be penalized for that.” Nesselrodt said that one of the goals this year lay in getting parents and students to recognize the difference between “big sick” and “little sick,” that COVID made families feel that any sign of illness means keeping kids home from school.
In his report, Hedrick shared that Pendleton County Schools had met all State of West Virginia standards on a recent accreditation report on various aspects of academics and administration. The only field where the system received a less than satisfactory mark lay in “post secondary achievement,” which takes into account the number of students in advanced placement and dual credit classes, as well as completers in career and technical education course paths.
He said that success here depends on more enrollees passing the AP and dual credit and succeeding in the CTE tests – and that central office staff were working on the problem.
