Fayette board to consider big athletic facilities projects
Steve Keenan, The Register-Herald, Beckley, W.Va.
Updated 5 min read
Feb. 26—fayetteville — Athletics and academics will both be on tap at Tuesday's regular meeting of the Fayette County Board of Education with two contracts related to athletic facilities upgrades in the county on the agenda.
The board is scheduled to act on Superintendent Gary Hough's recommendation to enter into a contract with McKinley Architecture and Engineering for renovations to the Midland Trail and Oak Hill high school football fields and the OHHS track, new lighting for the Oak Hill High baseball field and construction of new softball and baseball fields on the Midland Trail campus.
The second consideration will be approval of a contract for $349,875 with Musco Lighting to replace the baseball field lights and poles at Oak Hill High.
In both cases, local funds will pay for the contracts, according to the meeting notice.
Four architectural firms wanting to supervise the sports facilities work were interviewed last Tuesday.
"We had real key criteria," Hough said Friday. "We want all of the stadiums finished by Aug. 15. That was part of the interview process; can we produce this, and, what is the penalty per day if you don't?"
"We wanted to know their history in terms of production," he added.
All four firms indicated they could get the stadium work completed by Aug. 15 in time for the 2024 football season, said Hough.
"Once they select a firm, it's a turnkey deal," said Hough. "There will be some community input at the school level. We've got to get those groups together and do a selection pretty quickly."
The key element for the carpet end on the football fields, in particular, is that a 6-week lead time is involved. While waiting for the turf to become available, groundwork preparation such as soil stabilization will occur. "There's a lot more to it than just laying carpet," Hough said.
"Really, we don't want to touch the fields until after graduation," he added. "We're thinking the last week of May we'll begin to see earth work starting."
On the academics end of the spectrum, among the reports to the board and superintendent will be a scorecard review by Anna Kincaid-Cline, associate superintendent of curriculum, technology and instruction, on student achievement results/review updates. The board of education participated in a lengthy academics-centered work session early last week.
Also on the agenda for the 6 p.m. meeting at the central office are the consideration of three in-state/overnight trip requests for the Fayette Institute of Technology Parks and Recreation program, with funding provided by FIT, numerous personnel transactions, and various financial actions.
In addition, Diane Callison of the Family Resource Network will make a presentation on Project Adventure 2024.
----On Monday, Feb. 19, BOE members and central office staff were involved in a first-time academic summit as part of an all-day work session.
"Monday was hugely for informational purposes and to begin to establish, again, what can we do to make things better," according to Hough. "Where are we at with what we're doing? What breakdown areas do we have? Do we need to do more training? For example, we need to do a better job of training our subs, early on.
"We also dealt with areas like where are we not getting the best opportunities for our teachers to give good, quality instruction? What's causing that breakdown?"
Participants Monday broke up into teams and addressed five different topics, Hough said, in areas such as workload. Thoughts were pooled together and shared with the overall group "to determine how do we improve our system in an educational format?"
Officials have been working with staff and students (the latter which is occurring this week) on surveys on how to strengthen the learning environment. Hough likened the process to "good quality control."
A report must be submitted to the board within 90 days with the goal of developing a plan of action.
----The proposed 2024-25 Fayette County school calendar slots in a full week for spring break.
Hough said that a survey of employees by a county culture and climate committee indicated that employees wanted to have a spring break in the coming year. When students don't have a full spring break, school officials notice more behavioral problems, Hough noted.
He said a larger percentage of employees wanted the break than not.
Since their transportation model involves busing some students back and forth to Kanawha County, Fayette leaders must run a calendar fairly similar to Kanawha, Hough said.
"We always want to maintain certain breaks (Christmas and Thanksgiving), then we put the spring break in," he added.
The calendar, which schedules the spring break for April 14-18, 2025, has yet to be approved. One sparsely-attended public hearing has already been held, and another one is set for March 12 at 5:45 p.m. prior to a regular board meeting. The board will then make a decision at the meeting following the March 12 meeting.
Written comments on the calendar are accepted.
If approved as proposed, the first day of instruction for Fayette County students will be on Aug. 15, 2024, with the school term — depending on snow days — ending on May 28.
The 2023-24 calendar began Aug. 17 and concluded on May 20.
----On Feb. 23, several Fayette County Schools staff members participated in a cyber-audit workshop presented by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Hough said Fayette was the first school system in West Virginia to participate in the federally-funded program.
"We asked them to come in, and they'll tell us where our weaknesses are at, and where our vulnerabilities are at," he said. Combined with direction coming from the state level, Hough said FCS will perform internal operations later this year on the physical aspect of security.
