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Wood BOE honors fine arts students

By Douglass Huxley 6 min read

PARKERSBURG -- The Wood County Board of Education held its regular meeting Tuesday night at the Wood County Schools Central Office at 1210 13th St. in Parkersburg.

Board member Judy Johnson attended via Zoom and board member Debbie Hendershot was unable to attend.

Alayna Garst, a junior at Williamstown Middle/High School, was recognized by the board for being chosen to represent West Virginia at the National Art Education Association Conference in San Antonio, Texas, in April. Garst submitted a flag design for consideration and it was chosen to represent the state.

Garst also submitted artwork for the "I Love My County Because" contest, sponsored by Americans for the Arts, and her work was chosen for the cover of the National Association of Counties 2023 calendar. Garst was chosen from 13 entries from students around the country.

A performance by the Parkersburg High School Chamber Choir, under the direction of Joshua Dubs, was heard by the board after they were named and performed as the Honor Choir for the 2023 West Virginia Music Educators Conference on March 3 in Charleston.

"I wanna express my appreciation to listen to the music of our students. They are so good," board member Sarah Townsend said. "I'm glad we have a school system that does emphasize art and music as well as academics."

The board also recognized the WVMEA All-state Choir, the WVMEA Solo and Ensemble Recital, the West Virginia American Choir Directors Association (ACDA) Junior High Honor Choir, the West Virginia ACDA High School Honor Choir and the National ACDA National Honor Choir. A full list of students can be found in the online version of this story on the Parkersburg News and Sentinel website.

"I wanna give recognition to all those students that made all-state," board member Ron Tice said. "It takes a lot of effort and time, and not only from them, but also their parents. The parents put into it and I think that sometimes we overlook that."

Del. Scot Heckert, R-Wood, and Optimum representatives presented a check of $10,000 to the board that will fund 22 classroom projects through DonorChoose, a nonprofit organization that allows individuals to donate directly to public school classroom projects, to bring much needed educational tools, technologies, and resources to teachers and students in schools that include Parkersburg South High School, Jackson Middle School, Mineral Wells Elementary School, Lubeck Elementary School and Blennerhassett Middle School. A full list of teachers and schools can be found in the online version of this story on the News and Sentinel website.

"I thank Optimum because all of these teachers have been blessed by the donation here with DonorChoose this evening," Superintendent Christie Willis said.

"I greatly appreciate this. Thank you so much for bringing this to Wood County Schools."

The board also recognized CAS Cable as a Wood County Schools Outstanding Supporter for creating and televising commercials about the programs offered at the Wood County Technical Center.

"I just want to say thank you out loud to CAS Cable. They're one of our Partners In Education at the Wood County Technical Center and Caperton Center, along with Woodcraft," WCTC Director Jason Hughes said. "Brian Guthrie (Media and Marketing Manager at CAS Cable) and his team met with our teachers, and students, and filmed these 30-second commercials and they're just high quality."

The board heard a technology update from Jonathan Farley, director of technology. He said Parkersburg High School needs an entire new network.

"We're really excited about the new network at PHS," Farley said. "We've had a couple meetings already with the installers to make sure that we take care of the integrity of the building."

Farley said a network contingency plan needs to be put in place. Last year a lightning strike took out almost the entire board office and back supply, he said.

"The good thing is, the supply chain has opened up some, we have a good quantity of larger client capacity access points, that way we can meet the needs of our classrooms that have the one to one devices, and we have some switches on the way."

Farley also said they're looking at a system that will keep unwanted devices off of the school network. He said they are looking at upgrades for students' devices, upgrading security systems to hold 30 days worth of data, and about the purchases made for a self-harm alert. Farley said if a student uses school devices to search for anything that "shows suicidal tendencies" he will get notified of it. He said the program costs $2.08 per student.

"I want to go out on a limb and say we've had a few administrators that maybe have saved a few lives," Farley said. "And that $2.08, it's worth every penny."

Tammy McKnight, director of federal programs, spoke about the 2023 Summer School program.

"There's a lot of planning that goes into this and they've done a phenomenal job already," McKnight said. "And they are still planning. And I will tell you that people work on this up until the day those kids walk through the door."

McKnight talked about Camp Growl, for students who are in kindergarten through fifth grade, being hosted at Emerson Elementary starting June 21.

McKnight then talked about Middle School Explore, for grades sixth through eighth, starting June 21.

"The middle school concept is for kids to explore what they would like to do with their lives," McKnight said. "It is an opportunity for them to try different things, and that's what we're doing with the middle school concept this year."

McKnight said the students will be taking trips to area colleges and tech centers on Fridays.

McKnight said a newer program called Summer Spark will replace Jumpstart and be for those students entering kindergarten. That program will begin July 24.

McKnight said flyers will be sent home with students this Friday and registration will open March 27.

"I anticipate by the end of the day Monday we will probably have about 400-500 kids already registered," McKnight said. "It does go quickly."

During the consent agenda the board approved Jason E. Wyers as the interim director of purchasing until the position is filled, approved a number of MOUs (memorandum of understanding) and approved an E-Rate Technology Bid for WAN (Wide Area Network) Local Lines and WAN Backhaul.

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com

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