Notes from the end of the BoE meeting on March 26, 2024
Item #12 – Matters of the Board (only including notes about the budget cut)
(This is the opportunity for board members to speak about anything not on the agenda, which they are concerned about.)
(Please note - these are my own notes from the meeting, and are only as accurate as I was able to capture. Audio from the meeting is forthcoming and should be listened to if you really want to hear about the meeting.)
Audio: BoE March 26 Item 12.m4a
Morgan McComb: Nothing to discuss
Jarrett McLaughlin: Thought everyone handled themselves well and the students were well spoken
Becky Campbell:
Thought there was not enough information getting out
Felt the public knew more than she did, and that the board was not well informed regarding the issue; seemed concerned that Bostic did not give the board information on what was to take place
Also was upset about the lack of any facilities for remote callers; Bostic and Hollandsworth stated it wasn’t possible; Shifflet (technology director) noted that it was certainly possible to have a wired connection.
Sam Gibson (around 08:41 in the audio):
Note this was possibly the worst public relations issue ever for the board.
Stated he has received 184 emails, texts, and phone calls on this issue
Stated that this (the upset community) could have all been avoided with forethought
Sam’s questions led to a general discussion:
Sam asked where the budget shortfall is from. Sherry replied:
SRF money (forest fund(?)) is ending (few hundred thousand dollars)
ESRA (aka Covid relief) money ending ($1.2 Million)
Sam stated it made no sense to cut the teaching positions; asked that they include RIFS for all COVID hires, to buy time.
Lynne and Sue said that was not possible, as this was not on the board agenda.
[NOTE: I asked to be on the agenda, specifically to deal with this problem, on March 16 at 10am and was refused.]
Sherry (Radcliff) then stated that she had been saying for two years that these cuts were coming (around 11:50 on the audio)
Becky then tried to ask if the number of RIFs was equal to the budget shortfall. Things got a little unpleasant, but the answer appears to be yes.
Becky then tried to state that in that case, the board's hands are going to be tied.
Sam about eliminating the LPN hires from covid there is now an LPN in every school but Hillsboro); he was told that was not an option (I didn’t understand why)
Sherry later said you cannot RIF from the COVID funds because those weren’t used for people, but for HVAC systems [note - this directly contradicts her earlier statement]
Sue claimed what is happening to us is no different than Cabell and Kanawha counties [note- - this is not true; they have lost students and so are losing money; we have are not losing funding due to student decreases, but due to known roll backs]
This led to a very unpleasant (from my perspective) discussion - the scheduling solution
The scheduling solution:
The gist of the scheduling solution (which Sue, Lynn, and Morgan seemed highly in favor of) is that we just to look at classes which are small and either get rid of them (Morgan) or just combine them (Sue and Lynn).
E.g. why do we need so many AP classes? Just combine them, [editor’s note: this is an insane idea, as you cannot combine AP Calc with AP Physics]
They (I can’t recall who, but not Becky, Jared, or Sam) also questioned the point of the medical terms class, both anatomy classes, statistics, surveying [note: note being offered this year] and the various duel credit classes
“Its all going to be fixed with scheduling”
There was even a comment that Justin had 18 kids in chemistry, but could fit 24. So just combine classes
.Morgan, “I’m passionate about college course, but only if we can afford it”
Lots of discussion about making sure we meet what is required by law, and then just see what can fit “with scheduling”
Next steps:
The board did not even consider calling an emergency meeting to look at further RIFS
Next meeting April 16 after the mandatory levy meeting
They noted they will likely have 1-2 other working budget meetings in between.
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