The Wood County Board of Education read a proclamation Tuesday declaring Feb. 9-13 as School Counselor Week. The proclamation said school counselors are an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school. Pictured from left, Superintendent Christie Willis; Gwen Justice, county career and tech counselor; Angela Evans, Parkersburg South High School counselor; Jeff Kisner, director of secondary education; Kinley Caudle, Jefferson Elementary counselor, and Danielle Dougherty. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

PARKERSBURG — The Wood County Board of Education met Tuesday to review the district’s bond program’s financial status and concluded, assuming 100% of contingencies are used, the total project costs would be about $104.1 million against roughly $97.1 million in available bond-related funds.

Board President Justin Raber noted the district is about $6.9 million to $7 million over the originally available bond-related funds, which equates to roughly 6.68% over budget.

Ryan Taylor, Pickering Associates CEO and president, said the district was performing well with its projects.

“You’ve been able to only see a 7% increase past your income because you have other sources. You’ve added a lot more scope and value to the county,” Taylor said. “And it’s only costing you a premium over six years of 7%. I would take it.”

Kaleb Lawrence, assistant superintendent of operations, also gave an update on the construction progress of those projects. He said despite winter weather, the ball field upgrades for Parkersburg South High School, the new bleachers at the Erickson All Sports Facility, construction at Madison and the ongoing footer pours at Lincoln are all moving forward.

“They were going to pour the rest of the footers today in Lincoln, but with all that snow and ice, some ice got in there, and they actually had the excavator with a hammer in there busting up the ice to get it ready for the pour tomorrow,” Lawrence said. “So, 100 yards of concrete tomorrow (Wednesday) to finish the footers up.”

Superintendent Christie Willis said there were adjustments made to the district’s grading periods and midterm dates.

“We are now going to have midterm Feb. 20. Grades are closed on March 23 and report cards will be issued on April 3,” Willis said.

She said because of these adjustments, the fourth nine weeks will also be modified by one week.

“For the fourth nine weeks, because we’re changing the third, we are also going to adjust the fourth one week grade period, so midterm is going to be May 1, and then grades will close on the last day of school,” Willis said.

She also asked the board to delay action on an OS day conversion that had been placed on the consent agenda.

“I’ve learned that there may be a possibility that the State Department might offer a waiver option,” Willis said. “So I would like to wait until we see if this waiver option is available before we convert that OS day.”

Willis also went over the numbers for this year’s RIF and Transfer process.

Get the full story from Tuesday’s meetings in the Thursday edition of the News and Sentinel.

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com.