Photo Courtesy/W.Va. Board of Education LOW ENROLLMENT – West Virginia Board of Education President Nancy White, second from left, said Wednesday that the decision by county school boards to close and consolidate schools was due to student enrollment declines.

CHARLESTON – With county school systems in West Virginia considering closures and consolidations of traditional public schools due to overall population loss, education officials said lawmakers need to consider significant changes in how the state funds community schools.

Members of the West Virginia Board of Education approved several consolidation plans for schools in Kanawha County at their monthly meeting in Charleston Wednesday, but discussion turned to the issue of school consolidation across the state.

The state board approved amendments to comprehensive education facilities plans (CEFP) presented by Kanawha County Schools. Approved plans include the closing of Belle Elementary School, Malden Elementary School, Mary Ingles Elementary School, and Midland Trail Elementary School. Those schools will be consolidated into a new Eastern Kanawha Elementary Center once the state School Building Authority approves a grant application.

The state board also approved Kanawha County’s amended CEFP plans for the closure and merger of McKinley Middle School into Hayes Middle School and the closure and merger of East Bank Middle into Dupont Middle which will both occur at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.

Multiple county school systems are either moving ahead with consolidating smaller elementary, middle, and high schools with existing schools or considering new schools to accommodate the students being moved from closing schools. Other counties moving forward or considering consolidation over the last 12 months include Wood, Harrison, Randolph, Clay, Lincoln, Roane, and Wetzel counties.

“In this time of decreasing student enrollment in public schools throughout most districts in our state, county boards of education are having to make very, very difficult decisions,” said Nancy White, president of the state school board, following the board’s vote on Kanawha County’s CEFP amendments. “School closures are an unfortunate reality for our communities and what they’re facing.

“The connection between the community and a school represents a special relationship,” White continued. “Everyone on the state board understands this. I’m certain that everyone on the local school boards understand this as well and feels the pain associated with school closures. We know that keeping schools open when they are only partially filled draws money and resources away from our students.”

SUBTRACTION AND DIVISION

According to the Department of Education, there are 245,047 students enrolled in 637 public schools during the previous school year. According to the latest official enrollment numbers finalized in October, there were 241,024 students enrolled this year, which was down more than 4,000 students from the previous year. There are now 629 public schools – down by eight.

The 241,024 children enrolled in public schools is nearly 14% less than the 280,310 students enrolled in public schools in the fall of 2014 – a reduction of 39,286 children no longer enrolled in public schools over the last decade.

“If the trajectory continues…we’re looking at a possible 26 school closures for this school year due to the enrollment and the funding that we’re facing,” said State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt.

County school systems rely on property taxes, bonds and levies, and funding through the complicated state school aid formula which is primarily based on student enrollment. The Department of Education finalizes student enrollment numbers every October, which then determines how much money county school systems get from the school aid formula the next school year.

There are several factors decreasing student enrollment, including the state’s new open enrollment program. The law requires county school boards to allow eligible students to transfer between schools in the county as long as the school being transferred to has capacity and has programs not already offered in a student’s attendance zone.

The law also allows for student transfers between counties. According to data from the West Virginia Department of Education, for the 2023-2024 school year, 6,135 students transferred within their home counties, and 1,425 transferred to public schools outside their home counties.

Last month, the Wood County Board of Education voted to close Fairplains Elementary School and merge it with Martin Elementary School beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. County officials cited decreasing enrollment numbers at Fairplains, which dropped by 58 students over a two-year period. Current enrollment at Fairplains stands at 162 students.

While consideration of Wood County’s request to close Fairplains was not on the state board’s agenda, Fairplains Principal Julie Gibson addressed the state board Wednesday.

“I understand the financial constraints we all face, but I think my students are worth a little more money for the hope of a small miracle that they continue into high school and graduate and even further their education,” Gibson said. “Please don’t allow the county to slow the academic progress of my students. Please come and visit our school before you make your decision.”

MULTIPLE CHOICE

Another issue affecting enrollment numbers are the handful of public charter schools, the two statewide virtual charter schools, and the number of former public school students who have signed up for the Hope Scholarship education voucher program.

According to the Department of Education, there were 3,366 students enrolled in the state public charter school system this school year and 10,174 students participating in the Hope Scholarship program for a combined 13,540 students in those two programs – or nearly 46% of the 29,589 students who left the traditional public school system since 2017.

The department also reported that there are 24,502 home school students and 12,766 private/parochial school students in West Virginia.

The four current brick-and-mortar charter schools are located in Morgantown, Kearneysville, South Charleston, and Clarksburg, with two more coming online in Inwood and Morgantown next year. But most of the children in the state public charter school system attend either the Virtual Preparatory Academy of West Virginia or the West Virginia Virtual Academy.

During the previous school year, 1,603 students were enrolled in the two statewide virtual charter schools and 667 students enrolled in the four physical public charter schools. The public charter school pilot program allows 99% of the per-pupil funding from the state school aid funding formula — or between $7,000 and $8,000 per student — to follow the student from the traditional public school they are leaving to the public charter school.

Another factor are students leaving in order to participate in the Hope Scholarship, which gives parents the option to use an equivalent portion of the per-pupil expenditure for their children from the state School Aid Formula for educational expenses, such as private or religious school tuition, homeschool, tutoring, learning aids and other acceptable expenses.

For the 2024-2025 school year, eligible families will receive 100% of $4,921 from the Hope Scholarship program if they applied between March 1 and June 17, with the amount decreasing by 25% depending on the time period parents apply.

Until the 2026-2027 school year, the Hope Scholarship is limited to children who are eligible to be enrolled in a county school system’s kindergarten program the year the parents are applying, public school students who were enrolled full time during the school year prior to applying for the scholarship or public school students enrolled for at least 45 days during the current school year.

While the Hope Scholarship is funded through the general revenue budget and takes no money directly from the school aid formula, it does mean that students who leave the public school system to take advantage of the Hope Scholarship are no longer counted towards the enrollment-based formula, meaning less money for county school systems in the next school year and more uncertainty for budgeting, driving cost-cutting decisions such as school consolidations.

“There’s a lot going on that is – you know, I’m just going to put it out there – decimating public schools,” said state board member Debra Sullivan during questioning of officials with Kanawha County Schools Wednesday.

The state public charter school pilot program was created by the Legislature in 2019, while the Hope Scholarship was created by lawmakers in 2021. The Legislature approved open enrollment in 2023, and recently received praise from the libertarian Reason Foundation for its open enrollment program. Governor-Elect Patrick Morrisey campaigned on the platform of universal school choice.

Americans for Prosperity – a conservative grassroots group focused on economic progress, easing regulations, criminal justice reform, and education reform – supported Morrisey by going door-to-door and spending money in the May primary on behalf of Morrisey. American for Prosperity’s West Virginia chapter supports expansion of the state’s school choice program.

Jason Huffman, state director for AFP-WV, said West Virginia’s student population decline alone predates the implementation of public charter schools and the Hope Scholarship. He called statements by state Board of Education members blaming school choice for student population declines “partisan hackery.”

“I think that the blame shifting really services no one,” Huffman said. “The fact of the matter is that West Virginia has experienced declining student population and population in general for decades. For officials in the education system to try to grasp at the Hope Scholarship or some of these other educational options as the primary culprit instead of being introspective and looking at their school system – that people are leaving increasingly so after COVID – I think is pretty much just partisan hackery at its finest.”

Huffman said that despite county school systems losing state school aid formula dollars due to students leaving traditional public schools, those same county school systems still retain federal funding and local tax dollars. Huffman said the key is creating pro-growth policies that reverse the overall decline in state population

“West Virginia has had a declining population. We’ve just sort of evened that out through this program of pro-growth, pro-freedom policies that lawmakers have stepped up in a big way to adopt to try to fix our economic woes.

“It’s going to be a long climb upwards to fix our economy to grow our population,” Huffman continued. “That’s why you see lawmakers prioritizing things, like eliminating the personal income tax. As Patrick Morrisey talks about all the time, we have to be in a backyard brawl with all the states that we touch…We’re going to continue to see these pro-progress policies. My hope is that we bring more people into the state because we are the best bet for them to live their version of the American dream.”

FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

Two members of the West Virginia Senate – state Sens. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, and Rupie Phillips, R-Logan – sent surrogates to the state Board of Education meeting reading letters on their behalf asking the board to reconsider any consolidations of schools in Southern Kanawha County.

“I urge reconsideration of the decision to close important community-based schools in Kanawha County,” Stuart wrote. “Consolidation is not the real answer to budgetary limitations in West Virginia public schools. While there may be short term financial benefits, the long term adverse financial impact is not insubstantial.”

“While I fully understand that these decisions are driven by fiscal responsibility and the need to address funding issues, I must emphasize that we cannot lose sight of the primary reason our public schools exist to serve the educational needs of our students,” Phillips wrote.

However, state board members said the power to prevent school consolidations is in the hands of lawmakers by directing more money to public education and making changes to how county school systems receive state funding.

“We’re not in charge of the funding formula,” Sullivan said. “I’m hoping that our legislators are really looking at what can be done to support our public schools and to put money into them. Because over 90% of West Virginia school aged children are attending public schools…That’s going to be the future of our state.”

“It rings hollow to me when legislators go…in the paper and they send letters here and say they want smaller schools,” said board member and legislative liaison Paul Hardesty – the previous president of the state school board and a former Democratic state senator from Logan County. “Well, guess what…they have the ability to effectuate the change.

“We are hemorrhaging population loss in public schools. It’s going to get worse,” Hardesty continued. “I wish I had a different outcome and a different answer, but I don’t. All I have is the code of West Virginia to go by. And right now, the funding formula for public education is severely flawed.”

(Adams can be contacted at sadams@newsandsentinel.com)