CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha County Schools Superintendent Dr. Tom Williams says it’s going to be an emotional couple of weeks ahead as discussions on a series of school closures and consolidations get underway.

Williams met with members of the media Monday ahead of various rounds of public hearings the Kanawha County Board of Education plans to host over the next three weeks to discuss these changes.

At the meetings, Williams will present his recommendations for the consolidation of two middle schools in the county as well as four Eastern Kanawha County elementary schools, and invite parents and community members to speak on the matter before the board takes up a vote.

The schools in question for consolidation include East Bank Middle School closing and consolidating with Dupont Middle, and McKinley Middle School in St. Albans to close and consolidate with Hayes Middle School. In addition, Mary Ingles Elementary School, Malden Elementary, Midland Trail Elementary and Belle Elementary School would all close down and consolidate into one large, new elementary school under William’s recommendation.

Tom Williams

Williams told the media on Monday that this is far from something he wants to have to do, but it’s the necessary thing to do.

“Please know that it’s not an easy decision for anyone,” Williams said. “The board doesn’t like making these decisions, I don’t like making these recommendations, but when we continue to lose population, we just don’t have a choice.”

Williams said the Kanawha County School district has lost approximately 5,000 students over the last decade due to an overall loss in population. He said the school system’s funding then gets jeopardized due to that population decline, which has now roughly faced a loss of up to $28 million.

Williams said they just don’t have the population that they once did to support the same number of schools in the county.

“When the plants in the area, Dupont and Carbide and FMC were all up and running, we had 60,000 kids in our school system, when I was a student in Kanawha County in the 60s, that’s how many kids we had, but as the plants left, so did the people,” he said.

One question proposed to Williams on Monday was whether the middle schools could get a brand new school as well, but he said the challenge with that is having enough space and enough funding. He said between East Bank and Dupont alone, a new school would be projected at $50 million.

Williams said they already have more leverage when it comes to building another new elementary school in the county.

“The reason we’re able to propose closing four elementary schools is because we already own a piece of property that’s large enough, according to state code to build an elementary school on, and it’s relatively flat, so we wouldn’t have to do the work that we did at Clendenin or Herbert Hoover where we had to flatten the land out,” said Williams.

He said the new elementary school would cost roughly $30 million. In addition to providing some of their own funding for the project, the board has requested some funding from the School Building Authority and will hear from them in December as whether or not the funding was granted.

Williams said the consolidations into Dupont and into Hayes can be done without any funding at all and they can just move the students in, that’s how low the numbers are.

He said the consolidations would be beneficial in the sense that all the resources would be concentrated into one area, and with less expenditures, they would have more money left over to spend on resources. Williams added that this would come with more opportunities for the students as well.

“Sports teams, things of that nature, there’s more opportunities in band, clubs, things like that,” he said. “You have more students, so you’re able to have a wider variety of clubs, athletics, arts programs, and things of that nature.”

The first hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 8 will be on the potential consolidation of East Bank Middle into Dupont Middle. It will get underway at Riverside High School at 6 p.m. The hearing for McKinley Middle School consolidating with Hayes Middle School will be on Wednesday, Oct. 9 at St. Albans High School.

As for elementary schools, the hearings will start with a meeting for Belle Elementary on Oct. 15, followed by a hearing on Oct. 17 for Mary Ingles Elementary. Malden Elementary and Midland Trail Elementary will have hearings the following week with Malden on Oct. 21 and Midland Trail on Oct. 22. All of the meetings will begin at 6 p.m.

Williams said he anticipates they will be emotional meetings no matter what.

“People are very passionate and very emotional about their schools, one way or the other, and in consolidation, it’s always they’re passionate about their schools and don’t want them closed,” he said.

However, Williams added that as of right now, these are all just proposals and the final decision is left up to the board.

The timeline for the middle schools, should the recommendation of consolidation be passed, is that the middle schools will close by the end of this year and will be consolidated by the start of next school year.

For the elementary schools, the board must first wait on the December approval to build a new elementary school. Williams said if approved, the consolidation process for the elementary schools wouldn’t even start to begin until at least 2028.

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