KINGWOOD — Preliminary figures show that Preston County didn’t lose enrollment this school year.
For an area that has seen a long term decline in enrollment, that’s good news, noted Board President Jack Keim.
The official tally is taken in October.
“These numbers are in flux,” Preston School Superintendent Steve Wotring cautioned the board of education Monday about the preliminary figures he presented. “There are still some additions and some deletions that will come from each school, as not every transfer out has been requested yet, and there were some … kids that hadn’t been counted correctly yet,” Wotring said. “I just wanted to give you a sense of where we stood.”
He expects the numbers to grow by, “a couple more.” The county total in the preliminary report stood at 4,429 students, or 14 more than last school year.
Aurora gained two students over last year’s enrollment; Bruceton, 25; Fellowsville, seven; Terra Alta, 22; and Preston High, 22. Central Preston’s enrollment is unchanged from last year’s.
Kingwood Elementary showed a drop of 10 students; Rowlesburg, nine; South Preston, 16; and West Preston, 29.
In 2014-2015, Preston had 4,583 students, according to state figures. And in 1998-1999, there were 5,097 students in county schools.
Also at Monday’s meeting, the board heard busing requests from two people.
Edna Moreland asked that a bus begin traveling 1.5 miles up Red Rock Road to drop off her two children, aged 9 and 13, after school. She will continue to drive them to the current bus stop in the morning. In the past, her parents were able to pick up the children, she said. And last winter her brother was able to pick them up four days a week and she left work to pick them up on Fridays, then return to work.
The school bus has not run on the road since 1999, but there is a turnaround spot, Moreland said. She also offered to talk with the logging company that uses the road to arrange so they would not meet the bus.
Transportation Director Tony Harris said it is a steep road with a ravine on one side, and he thinks it would be unsafe in the winter because it’s not well maintained by the DOH.
Susie Sheets, of Birds Creek Road, asked that the top .7 of the road be made part of the Kingwood Elementary attendance area and a Kingwood bus come down to pick up the students. It has traditionally been in the Kingwood attendance zone, she said, and students are split between Kingwood and South now.
Kingwood students have to come to the top of the road to be picked up by the bus.
Wotring said he would discuss both issues with Harris this week.
In other discussions, Keim, who represents the board of ed on the Preston County Economic Development Authority Board, said he was approached by board members about offering adult education classes in computers, meat cutting and electrical trades. Wotring said expanding career and technical education (CTE) is something he hopes to do.
