Trending
MORGANTOWN - The Monongalia County Board of Education opened its meeting earlier this week by recognizing Morgantown High School's state championship cross-country teams, boys and girls, which served - as sorts - for the tone-setting to follow.
And that's because the district, Deputy Superintendent Donna Talerico told the BOE on Tuesday, is now "chasing" enrollment, in that more and more Mon families are opting for homeschooling or alternate education for their children.
To date, there are 10,907 students enrolled in Mon's public schools. This time last year, 11,070 students - 163 shy from the most recent accounting - were answering roll across the district.
"Are these numbers devastating?" Talerico asked the BOE. “No, they’re not.”
"Are they impactful? You bet."
That's because they signify an ongoing trend, that until 2020 was foreign to a district whose residents almost always vote yes to an excess levy for education that brings some $35 million annually to school coffers.
The pandemic knocked the numbers, Talerico said, and the district has yet to fully recover.
In contrast to the current numbers, Mon's district boasted an enrollment of 11,589 students in 2019 and 2020, before COVID forced the district to pivot and go to all-remote learning while positive cases raged, she chronicled further.
The contagion, she said, "really changed the picture of education" in Mon's school system.
Currently, 450 students are being home-schooled in the county, Talerico said.
"That's nothing new," she said. "That's always been a choice for families."
What is new, she said, is the Hope Scholarship, which gives families the chance to homeschool their children, or enroll them in charters or private schools.
And right now, she said, a total of 1,390 students in Mon are on the scholarship.
Those numbers prompted a question from Frank Devono, who formerly served as district superintendent.
Devono, who ran unopposed during the midterm elections last week, wanted to know if Talerico could offer a more magnified look.
"Where are they going?" he asked. "We need to know who we're competing against."
The district can do that to a point, Talerico said.
In the meantime, she's appreciative that the district and the board - through solid management, she said - have been able to weather the current seismic shifts by avoiding layoffs of teachers and other staff.
"Our people are our most important resource," she said.