photo by: Emma Delk
Marshall County Board of Education President John Miller, left, and Superintendent Shelby Haines during the board meeting on Tuesday.
Marshall County Board of Education members on Tuesday began laying the foundations for the next school year before students leave the classroom in May.
Board members unanimously approved multiple personnel changes to prepare for the 2025-26 school year, including retirements and resignations that will leave open positions that need to be filled for next school year.
Superintendent Shelby Haines said the county would be posting “a significant number of jobs” this Thursday as the county office begins to hire faculty for the next school year. Jobs will be posted for service personnel, county office/administrative positions and citizen coaches.
“Somebody internally could get a job, which then opens up their job, so it takes a while to get everything ready,” Haines said. “It may seem early that we’re posting these positions pretty early before August, but we want everybody set before the school starts.”
After the next board meeting, held on Tuesday, May 13, Haines said they would begin posting any open professional positions, including teachers, as college students begin to graduate in mid-May.
Another step the board took to prepare for next year was to unanimously approve the 2025-27 Memorandum of Understanding between the Administrative Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia and Marshall County Schools to renew Mike Rose’s position as the MCS truancy diversion specialist. Rose’s role in the county is to discover and help address issues that lead to students’ truancy, keeping them out of the court system and in school.
Haines said Rose currently has a caseload of about 40 students that he checks on to make sure they are attending school. She noted that “a significant amount” of Rose’s salary is reimbursed to the county from the Administrative Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.
“As we’ve said before, it doesn’t matter how good the teaching is if the students are not there to get it,” Board President John Miller said after the board approved the MOU. “To me, it’s a no-brainer decision.”
The last action board members took to prepare for next year was to unanimously approve the MCS 2025-26 Title I Parent Engagement Procedure. The three Title I schools in the county — Central Elementary, Center McMechen Elementary and McNinch Primary School — use the federally required engagement procedure to collect parent feedback about the schools.
During her report, Haines reflected on the preparations that had already begun for the next school year. She noted these preparations included multiple schools in the county undergoing recruitment exercises on Tuesday.
“In a way, we are in a fight for every child when we have home schools, charter schools and Hope Scholarships,” Haines said. “There were several schools doing recruitment-type activities today with informational flyers and signs in yards to try to show pride in their school and to retain as many students as they can.”