Call it a fiscal fact of life.
People who manage money for school districts aren’t necessarily accustomed to receiving applause on the record.
However, that’s exactly what Nicole Kemper experienced during Tuesday night’s meeting of the Monongalia County Board of Education.
The overture of appreciation came tumbling down after Kemper, who is the district’s treasurer, told the BOE that yes – the popular Summer Sizzler and Summer Avalanche learning enrichment programs were going to be funded this coming June and July, as they had been for the prior four years.
“I know that’s important to the board,” she said.
“Now I don’t have to worry about trying to hit the lottery,” board member Shawn Smith said, grinning.
Sweeping federal cuts to the U.S. Department of Education earlier had put both programs into academic jeopardy – or at least academic limbo.
The Sizzler is a literacy program that delivers books in the hands of elementary-age youngsters and the Avalanche is a full-on learning camp for students from kindergarten through high school.
Nutritional breakfasts, snacks and lunches are also part of the deal.
Mon’s school bus drivers dispatch free books and snacks courtesy of the Sizzler to school parking lots, bus stops and other designated places.
Every public school in Morgantown and Mon hosts the monthlong Avalanche proceedings, which also don’t require a fee for registering or participation.
Both programs were born of COVID-19. The district created them to help regain footholds lost during months of remote learning as the coronavirus raged.
Meanwhile, Mon’s district had been paying for them through a $1.4 million outlay from the federal Elementary and Secondary School Relief Fund, which emerged from the shadow of the pandemic in 2021.
Those dollars were since discontinued, however, and while the district was able to keep both programs going through this past summer – everything was going to be a question mark after that.
In September 2024, Kemper had to tell the board that it appeared there would be no outlay at all for future editions of the above, given the federal cuts.
That was even with the district’s current operating budget of $176.3 million, Superintendent Eddie Campbell said.
That particular dollar amount puts Mon’s district well ahead of its neighbors across the Mountain State, Campbell allowed – “But it’s not like an account we’re sitting on,” as he told The Dominion Post previously.
And that’s because “every dime and dollar,” the superintendent said, had already been accounted for and spent.
“We don’t want them to go away,” Campbell said of the two offerings. “We don’t want to not have them. We’re gonna have to start looking for grants and anything else out there.”
The 2025 fiscal year ended June 30, and some $1 million in carryover dollars, Kemper said, will be allocated to the Sizzler and Avalanche – which still has Deputy Superintendent Donna Talerico cheering and applauding.
She likes both programs, she said, but she’s especially a fan of the Avalanche.
After all, the deputy superintendent said: What’s not to like about a lineup that takes in everything from computer programming to clawhammer banjo?
“We’ll be able to keep our kids engaged for another summer,” she said.
“It’s serious learning, but it’s also fun learning.”
