By Stephen Smoot
As they met during a power outage two weeks ago, the Pendleton County Board of Education heard some electrifying news. One of their top priorities going into the school year 10 months ago lay in increasing attendance.
Though no one claims victory just yet, the numbers showed the results of school and central office personnel in bringing substantial improvements.
The meeting opened with the Pledge of Allegiance and also the invocation by J. D. Wilkins, board president. “We thank You for the ability to be flexible and have the meeting without power,” he prayed.
In the brief meeting, the board turned first to personnel matters. One of the items referred to the possible hiring of an itinerant certified occupational therapy assistant. Sonny O’Neil, board member, inquired if this service was billable to Medicaid.
It was explained that if a COTA is hired in a certain fashion, under supervision of an occupational therapist, that the school system could still bill Medicaid for services. The board approved the recommendation to post for the position.
Charles Hedrick, superintendent, filled in for Travis Heavner in giving the facilities report. He informed the board that “It looks like the initial estimate” to repair some damage to North Fork Elementary School “is probably a little under $70,000.”
Wilkins chimed in to say, “which is better than expected.”
At least as good as expected, if not better, came the year end attendance figures provided by Carrie Nesselrodt.
She provided two sets of figures with the first coming from overall attendance in the county and each school. For the school year 2024-25, the county attendance ended at 93.64 percent, which rose from 92.97 from the prior year. Nesselrodt noted that an official involved with an educational contractor for the State of West Virginia informed her that a .75 percent increase represented significant progress.
In the individual schools, Brandywine Elementary School showed a percentage of 94.639 percent, Franklin Elementary School at 94.542 percent, North Fork Elementary School at 93.937 percent, and Pendleton County Middle/High School at 92.789 percent.
As Nesselrodt pointed out, however, the state has laid emphasis on reducing chronic absenteeism. This refers to students who have missed 10 percent or more of days through the school year.
Pendleton County saw overall chronic absenteeism drop from 21.201 percent to 15.19 percent. She gave the percentage for Brandywine Elementary School as 9.34 percent, but did not mention the previous year’s numbers.
Franklin Elementary School improved from 12.9 to 8.66, North Fork from 18.48 to 13.2, and PCM/HS from 28.97 down to 20.94. Nesselrodt gave special praise to Nicole Hevener, principal of PCM/HS, and the Communities in Schools team for the significant drop there.
She also explained that the state calculates numbers slightly differently than the county. So the numbers they base their reports on in next fall’s Balanced Scorecard may differ somewhat.
Pendleton County’s improvement helped the school system and individual schools potentially elevate their categories from the previous year. In chronic absences, for example, 10 percent or less indicates “meets standards” and is color-coded in green. A range between 10 and 20 percent means that the system or school “partially meets standards” and is represented by yellow. If the score falls at 20 percent or above, it does not meet the standard and gets marked in red.
That said, there is a major difference between chronic absence rates of approximately 29 and 20 percent, in the case of PCM/HS.
Nesselrodt stated that even those in red and yellow are all “headed in the right direction.”
At the close of the hearing, Hedrick was asked for the final time if he had anything for the superintendent’s comments section of the agenda. “I’d like to thank you all for your support,” Hedrick replied, going on to add, “I deeply appreciate it, and to our staff and board office too.”
