Calhoun County School Board met for their regular LSIC meeting at Pleasant Hill Elementary on Tuesday, November 15th, 2022.
The Board recognized multiple students by presenting them certificates for recent accomplishments. The following students were recognized but not all were present.
B Team Cheerleaders LKC Cheer Competition 3rd Place Winners (Coaches Samantha Moles and Melissa Jarvis)• Addison Caudill, • Kenlie Jervis, • Mandy Johnson, • Audrey McCumbers, • Sadie McGlothlin, • Sophia Bartelt, • Ariana Bremar, • Audrey Johnson.
C Team Cheerleaders LKC Cheer Competition 3rd Place Winners (Coaches Michelle Kellar, Tracy King and Dani Cunningham)• Raelyn Brannon, • Sophia Goodrich, • Maggie Kellar, • Baylee Allison, • Raelyn Arnold, • Kyla Burrows.
B Team Football LKC Champions (Coaches Travis Mayle, Shaun Snodgress, Trevor Lynch, Brandon Cottrell and Scott Laughlin)• Grayson Laughlin, • Tyler Mayle, • Chandler Cottrell, • Carter Thompson, • Tristan Rogers, • Catelynn Foster, • BentleySnodgres, • Silas Cunningham, • Liam Yeager, • Payden Yeager, • Koby Crislip, • Jase Farley, • Brantley Schoolcraft, • Kyle Shook, • Cooper Summers, • Josh Hardbarger.
As part of the Local School Improvement Council Presentation, Students in 1st through 4th grades informed the School Board members about recent classroom activities.
First Grade Students are writing and illustrating a hard bound book. Once the book is complete they’ll be hosting a book launch party and will be available to sign copies.
School Administrator, Ashley Cunningham, provided the Pleasant Hill LSIC presentation with recent data and information regarding school staff and goals. PHE is striving to increase academic growth proficiency by an average of 10% in all grade levels in the areas of Math and ELA from their August 2022 benchmarks to May 2023 benchmarks. The school is working for a 10% attendance increase and will identify chronically absent students and reduce chronic absences from 19% from 2021-2022 to at least 15% for the 2022-2023 school year as measured by ZoomWV.
Pleasant Hill Elementary students were given STAR Benchmarks BOY (Beginning of Year) tests to determine their literacy proficiency . STAR assessments are computer-adaptive tests (CATs). Computer-adaptive tests continually adjust the difficulty of each child’s test by choosing each test question based on the child’s previous response. If the child answers a question correctly, the difficulty level of the next item is increased. If the child misses a question, the difficulty level is decreased. CATs save testing time and spare your child the frustration of items that are too difficult and the boredom of items that are too easy.
- To help understand the charts below which were provided by the school, when looking at the Kindergarten class, they began the with 33% literacy proficiency, meaning that 33% of the students were reading at or above grade level upon entering their kindergarten year, 15% were “on watch”, 12% were needing intervention and and 37% were considered in urgent need of intervention.
Beginning of the Year iReady Benchmarks for 2022-2023 are the math scores for each grade upon starting the school year. Kindergarten began with 8% of the students testing at grade level and 92% testing one level below. The 1st grade graph in red shows the percentage of students 2 or more grade levels below.
Mrs. Cunningham highlighted the number of staff, support personnel and programming the school has, believing the 1 adult to 3 student ratio allows the school to give added attention in multiple areas of learning and care. Parent and community involvement is high and she believes they are on the road to a successful school year.
Matthew McFadden of Secure Solar Futures presented his business model to the Calhoun Board of Education for consideration in putting solar panels on the schools in Calhoun County to reduce the energy costs. The Solar Panel company has an apprenticeship program where they’ve trained high school students to install solar panels on public schools in the coalfield region of Southwest Virginia. Those students were trained, certified, paid and provided work wear to install the solar panels. Some of those students continued in the field post graduation. While the savings for solar energy would be considerable the cost would be extreme. The Company does offer financing options but Superintendent Kelli Whytsell said it was Calhoun’s intentions to stay away from loans. The current roof restoration project was tabled for discussion at last nights board meeting until more time is spent investigating their options.
Superintendent Whytsell spoke regarding the failure of the school levy on November 8 saying that the Levy was all about providing “extras” for the students which we now cannot. She expressed her disappointment saying that she had heard part of the reason that it went down was because cross country and track were not apart of the plan, but the school can only do what they can. Another opportunity to request a levy will not occur until 2024.
Faith Christian Academy submitted an application for Cooperative Sponsorship of Sports. The School Board passed unanimously for the Academy’s students to be allowed to participate in Calhoun Middle School Team Sports. The costs of participation would be paid for by parents after the season is over, at which time it is determined how much it cost per student for the season. There is still a question regarding the supplemental insurance the school provides for students in the sports program that will be determined later.
Among the general business of the School Board was two staff resignations: Matthew Walker, Health and Physical Education Teacher at Calhoun Middle High School, effective June 30, 2023 and Ernest Tingler, who resigned as Athletic Director, effective November 16, 2022.
