Logan County Schools Superintendent answers questions surrounding Logan Elementary closure
Logan County Schools Superintendent answers questions surrounding Logan Elementary closure
Robert Fields | WVOW News
LOGAN Logan County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Sonya White answered questions Wednesday morning about the decision to permanently close Logan Elementary School following a fire that damaged the building in February.
White was a guest on WVOW’s What’s Your Opinion, where she discussed the cost of repairing the school, plans for renovating Logan Middle School and the future of the elementary school students now attending classes there.
Students at Logan Elementary have been attending classes at Logan Middle School since the fire. Captain Chris Hatfield of the City of Logan Fire Department said at the time that the fire was contained to one room, with heat extension into two smaller offices. Further investigation revealed extensive smoke and soot damage to nearly every room of the building, including the HVAC system and air ducts.
The state Fire Marshal’s Office determined the cause of the fire was faulty wiring in a room near the center of the school.
One question parents have asked is why students from Logan Elementary cannot be transferred to Justice Elementary, where the county has also proposed a permanent closure because of declining enrollment and district finances.
White said Justice Elementary was considered in the immediate aftermath of the fire, but that facility has its own problems. The building is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and would require a significant investment to bring it up to date.
“Justice has zero parking. There's enough parking for the teachers, and that's about it. Their playground has an asphalt. It's an older building. There's a lot of issues,” White said.
“It's not ADA compliant. There's millions of dollars of work that needs to be done there. And why move students there when we're still at about 50%, 60% in Logan Middle with both schools in there now,” she asked.
The superintendent said repairing and updating Logan Elementary would cost approximately 4.1 million dollars. She said the district has to consider whether that investment makes sense when other facilities also need work.
White said the discussion is not about closing Logan Elementary as a school, but rather closing the building. Logan Elementary will remain an independent school from Logan Middle School, even though the two will occupy the same facility.
The district has said it will seek funding from the West Virginia School Building Authority to renovate Logan Middle School and modify the facility to better serve elementary and middle school students.
White said the SBA has a grant program with applications due Friday. She said the district needs to act quickly to secure funding, or officials could be having the same conversation about the project by this time next year.
“If we continue, which we will continue to haggle with the insurance company, obviously, but we could potentially miss, we could haggle for another year and still be back here a year from now having the same conversation that we've done nothing to move forward on the students. Whereas with this plan, we're going to be able to remodel our Logan Middle Building, and it's still going to operate as two separate schools,” said Dr. White.
“Part of the remodeling is going to make sure that both schools have a separate entrance that's legitimate safe school entrances. Like I said, the pre-K rooms will get remodeled. There's some things we'll do upstairs for the middle school kids with a STEM lab and maybe move the art room upstairs so we can offer art to our middle school kids.”
If the SBA approves Logan County Schools’ application, White said work could begin immediately. However, the renovation would still take between 12 and 18 months to complete.
The superintendent said the district made every preparation possible to help Logan Elementary students feel comfortable in their new environment at Logan Middle School, but she acknowledged that more work remains.
“Back in February, after the fire, we did everything possible to make sure that the focus on the students was first, that the rooms were ready, that we had a schedule that allowed the two schools to operate independently within the same building,” White said. “And we've continued to work on that. Now, we didn't get everything done that we wanted to get done over the summer, but we're still working on some of those things as the year moves along.”
“But this year, the scheduling was a little better, and we were able to do some other things with classrooms and such. And really, for the kids, it's just another day. They see their teachers, they see their friends, and that's what a school is about. It's about the people in the building that make it special,” she said.
The future of the original Logan Elementary building is still uncertain. White said demolition is the most likely outcome, given the condition of the facility, but no plans have been finalized.
The discussion also touched on the other elementary schools proposed for permanent closure. South Man, Justice and Hugh Dingess elementary schools are all on the list.
South Man Elementary has recorded excellent test scores, and some residents have pointed to its smaller classrooms as a factor in student success. White said research does not establish class size as a direct cause of academic achievement. She said what matters more is what is happening in the classroom.
“Research doesn't bear fruit to smaller class size,” White said. “John Hattie, who has done extensive research on what we get our bang for our buck in education-wise, small class size has an effect size of 0.15. And for all of the math people out there, a 0.4 is a typical year's growth.”
“Class size doesn't matter. It's what's going on in there. And the numbers, when you look at assessment scores, if you have 10 kids in your class or 15, we'll go with 10 because it's easy math. Every child counts 10% for your proficiency rate. So one more child, your proficiency rate bumps 10%. If you have 25 kids in your class, your proficiency rate, each kid counts 4%. So the numbers are there, but you have to kind of look at it. One more kid can give you a huge jump in a small classroom, whereas in a larger classroom, it's not as significant,” the superintendent said.
From a financial standpoint, White said the number of students in a facility does not necessarily change the cost of operating the building. The facility still needs heated and cooled, and the lights have to stay on regardless of the number of students attending.
White also discussed how the district would respond if a fire or similar incident forced the closure of one of the county’s high schools. She said the contingency plan would involve moving students to another high school, since each of those buildings is operating at less than half capacity.
“All three of our high schools are at less than 50% capacity. So we would probably, it would be easy to absorb them in the other schools. Maybe look at bus routes, that sort of thing,” she postulated.
“And that's the thing. The Logan Elementary piece went so smoothly because we weren't at capacity at Logan Middle. And again, that wasn't a plan, it just happened as we're standing on the island going, ‘what do we need to do?’ Because my first concern on that day was making sure my kids were going to have a safe place to go to school and they were gonna get back as soon as possible because so many of our kids depend on our schools for food and other things,” White said.
“We just didn't want them out any longer than they had to be,” she said.
Listen to the full conversation from Wednesday’s What’s Your Opinion at our website.
