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photo by: Emma Delk

Marshall County Schools Superintendent Shelby Haines, right, reviewed WV Balanced Scorecard Discipline data during TuesdayÀÏ˾»úÖ±²¥™s school board meeting. Listening is board president John Miller.

Marshall County Schools Superintendent Shelby Haines reviewed two measures of student success on the West Virginia Schools Balanced Scorecard, attendance and behavior, for schools in the county during Tuesday’s meeting.

While Marshall County elementary and middle schools met or exceeded behavior standards, students in the county fell short regarding attendance standards.

Haines outlined the Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to establish long-term goals and annual targets for progress on those goals for each school on four measures used in states’ accountability systems.

These measures include academic achievement in mathematics, academic achievement in English language arts, the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and progress in achieving English language proficiency among students for whom English is not their primary language.

In addition to these four measures, Haines noted attendance and behavior are additional measures of student success for elementary and middle school on the WV Schools Balanced Scorecard.

According to the WV Balanced Scorecard, the behavior indicator promotes the goal that schools should be “positive and safe environments where students can attend and receive instruction.”

The percentage of students enrolled for the entire academic year with zero out-of-school suspensions were used to determine the behavior indicator on the balanced scorecard. All Marshall County middle and elementary schools exceeded behavior standards set by the WV Balanced Scorecard of a 95% or more zero out-of-school suspension rate.

“If the school has 90-95% with zero out-of-school suspensions, they meet the standard, and if they have 95% or more, they exceed the standard,” Haines said. “Individually, each school in the county met or exceeded this standard.”

The rate of chronically absent students, meaning they missed more than 10% of instructional days, was used to determine the attendance indicator.

According to the WV Balanced Scorecard, Cameron and Central elementary schools and Moundsville and Sherrard middle schools did not meet attendance standards. This means the schools had a chronically absent rate of more than 20%.

Center McMechen, Glen Dale, Hilltop, Sand Hill and Washington Lands elementary schools partially met attendance standards, meaning the schools had a chronically absent rate of more than 10% to 20%.

In other motions, the BOE approved the permission to sell six county buses and one truck, all with high mileage, for surplus auction on govdeals.com. Haines said they began selling vehicles on the website two years ago because they receive “a lot more money” for the vehicles at auction than selling them locally.

“We’ll get money from the state for new buses based on the number of kids enrolled to ride a bus,” Haines said. “We will continue to try to keep our buses up to snuff.”

BOE members also approved the purchase of a 2-post Lift for $17,839 for mechanics to use at the bus garage to work on cars and vans. Haines said the purchase was needed as the garage has big lifts for buses but no lifts for smaller equipment.

The 2024-25 work study sites for John Marshall and Cameron high school students were also announced during the board meeting. Moundsville sites include The Guest House, Grand Vue Park, Marshall County Animal Shelter, Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, Dairy Queen and Kroger. Catholic Charities in Wheeling is also a work-study site.

Haines noted that the work-study program was important for teaching students to become more independent and giving them the skills to “actually get employed” after graduation. She added that the participants will get paid “very minimally” for an hour while learning skills such as how to cash checks and obtain a state-issued ID.

“A lot of times, the younger grades, maybe ninth-grade students, may participate in the program through a work-study coordinator taking a group of students to the animal shelter,” Haines said. “As the kids get older, they become more independent in the program.”