The pandemic? Of course, it was the most difficult challenge Dr. Kim Miller faced during her first four years as superintendent of Ohio County Schools.
Gov. Jim Justice ordered public schools closed on March 13, told the students to go home, and instructed the teachers to figure out how to teach virtually, and administrators and service personnel to organize a system for meal distribution. Unpreceded, yes, but certainly not the only palm-to-the-face moment.
It’s been a difficult four years not only because of lawsuits, bomb threats, a theft at Wheeling Park High School, and the suspensions of an administrator but also with her oldest daughter’s departure to California to attend Stanford and the death of her father. But another four years is what Miller has signed up for and she will be compensated $157,000 for the 2020-2021 academic year with 2.5 percent wage increases the following three years.
“I am excited because we’ll continue what we started four years ago, and that is to do great things for the kids that attend Ohio County Schools,” Miller said. “It’s an awesome job most of the time, and there are always big decisions to make, but I have a team of really great people. I’ve always believed that if you surround yourself with that kind of people with a positive attitude, great things will happen.
“We exceeded our goals as a team, and no one is afraid to look outside the box,” she explained. “We’ve tried a lot of new things in an effort to move all of us forward, and that approach has produced a lot of very positive changes.”
Together We Achieve?
Once hired in June 2016, the new superintendent had less than a month to develop plans for what changes she believed needed to be made from her perspective as the principal at Woodsdale Elementary. Plus, Miller wanted to send a unified message to parents and taxpayers.
“That was important to me because I wanted every employee of the school system to know that I wasn’t going to try to do this job all by myself,” Miller explained. “ So, ‘Together We Achieve’ really says it all, and I think the people of Ohio County have seen that it’s been our approach to include everyone when making the decisions that we have to make.”
A social media presence was another goal, and at this time Ohio County Schools can be “Liked” on Facebook and followed on Twitter and Instagram, and pushing the passage of the bond and excess levies were priorities, too
“In the past four years, we passed a bond levy so the taxpayers in Ohio County will continue to help us provide the best education we can offer to our students,” Miller said. “The improvements to our buildings will provide better learning environments for our students on every level, and safety will be improved a great deal, as well.
“Our teachers, administrators, and our service workers have worked through a lot of challenging times what with the construction, curriculum changes, and of course, the pandemic,” she explained. “We all set the bar pretty high when we got started four years ago, and we have experienced a lot of success. Plus, four years ago, Ohio County Schools had absolutely zero social media presence, but now those platforms have become tools for us and our parents and students to communicate much more than what was taking place before.”
College AND Career
It was nearly 20 years ago when the federal government passed laws to force upon all public school systems in the country a concentration on higher education, but that approach has failed, and a new direction has been adopted in Ohio County.
A career technical education always has been offered at Wheeling Park High School, but thanks to the initiative of the leaders at Warwood School, the return of CTE classes to middle schools has begun.
“I am hopeful that we can expand Career Tech programs into all of our middle schools like what they have done at Warwood,” Miller said. “That was achieved by the administrators, and the students love it. We want our students to be exposed to all of the careers that are possible right here where they are being raised, and the people at Warwood took a risk because they could have failed. But we encourage that kind of innovation.
“Today’s CTE classes are different on the middle-school level from what they were 40 years ago, but the program still introduced our students to something much different than the education they receive during their regular classes,” she continued. “One of the best parts of the program is that we saw an increase in attendance, and I believe that’s because those classes made them feel like a part of something.”
Superintendent Miller says it all the time: “It’s all about the kids.”
“We have to continue looking at achievement gaps with our students and how we can continue to fill those gaps,” she explained. “We want to expand our communications so we can be even more interactive with our students, parents, and with our taxpayers in Ohio County. If we do everything we want to do, then it will come down to student achievement. That’s always been the goal, and it will always be the goal.”
