ST. ALBANS, W.Va. — The Kanawha County Board of Education voted Wednesday evening to close McKinley Middle School with a vote of 5-0.
McKinley Middle will consolidate with Hayes Middle School, the cross-town school on Strawberry Road in St. Albans.
Vice Mayor of St. Albans Jared Page says McKinley played a big part in his life.
“I actually am actually a graduate of McKinley. I went to McKinley, I played basketball at McKinley, so there is a part of me that hates to see this happen, but I also have to look and understand that we’re seeing this across our state,” Page said Wednesday evening. “It’s not just here in St. Albans, not just in Kanawha County.”
Page also says a closure will bring some pain to St. Albans citizens.
“There’s a lot of heartache, which there should be,” Page said. “There’s a lot of memories with individuals that played sports or had academic success there and different things, so I think the majority of what I’ve heard through our citizens is that they hate this is happening and wish that there were better options and ways to avoid the long drive to Hayes.”
McKinley Middle School joins East Bank Middle School as the two middle schools in the county on the chopping block. The board voted Tuesday to consolidate East Bank Middle School with Dupont Middle School.
Kanawha County Board of Education President Ric Cavender says consolidations are hard, but he thinks the board made the right decision.
“It’s not easy, but at the end of the day, I believe that we feel like we made the right decision for the system as a whole, and I think that once the students, next school year, get acclimated and get into their new school, I think they’ll see opportunities to where they’ll be excited,” Cavender said.
The closures of McKinley and East Bank are part of a proposal to shut down six schools in Kanawha County due to declining enrollment numbers and budget concerns. The other four schools that the board has yet to vote on are Mary Ingles Elementary School, Malden Elementary School, Belle Elementary School, and Midland Trail Elementary School.
Cavender says it’s an emotional time, but the board has a duty to manage a tough budget with the citizens’ tax dollars.
“These decisions are really hard to make because there’s a lot of emotion involved in it, but all at the same time, we were elected to be good stewards of those tax dollars,” Cavender said. “If we operate in the red too long, the state can take us over and we would never want that. We’re the largest county in the system and I happen to believe we should be setting the example for the entire state here in Kanawha County.”
16 supporters of McKinley Middle School spoke at the public hearing Wednesday evening, and one of the main concerns brought up multiple times was the location of Hayes Middle School. Like the East Bank community on Tuesday evening, multiple complaints were made about the added travel times for parents and extra lengthy bus rides for students. Hayes Middle School, which sits on Strawberry Road in St. Albans, is around a 10-minute drive from McKinley Middle School.
Another factor that was brought up was Strawberry Road itself. A handful of public speakers brought up the fact that Strawberry Road does not have acceptable sidewalks for the students that need to walk to and from school. In addition, McKinley supporters brought up that Strawberry Road is susceptible to flooding.
During the board’s question and answer session with Superintendent Tom Williams, Cavender asked Williams what could be done to make Strawberry Road safer. Williams informed Cavender and the public that plans are in the works from the legislature to widen the road.
While there is no timetable on a widening project, Cavender says the progress on Strawberry Road will be important to monitor.
“It is a concern. It does sound like members of the legislature are starting to work on finding funding to widen that road. We don’t know when that’s going to happen,” Cavender said. “There has been flooding on that road here recently, some damage on that road and that is a concern and that’s something that I think, we as board members are going to be paying really close attention to over this next year.”
Cavender also addressed the fact that both McKinley and East Bank students will be moving into their rival schools with the consolidation. Cavender says the ones that are most apprehensive about the transition to “rival” middle schools are the parents.
“When we consolidate two schools that would maybe be perceived as rivals, we’ve seen that happen, it’s more so the parents who went to those schools who have those concerns because they remember those rivalries,” Cavender said. “I don’t think we see that as much as we used to just because, again, I think that’s due to population loss. There are less students, therefore, I think there is less focus on that. Also, I think a lot of our students are emersed in a lot more technology than 30 years ago and they’re communicating much differently than they used to and I think that has an impact on it too.”
Another topic that came up in the hearing was a suggestion to change the name and identity of the school with the consolidation.
Page says it will create more unity if the school was named “St. Albans Middle School.”
“The best way forward is to create unity in our community, and I think you do that by working with the board to change the name of Hayes to St. Albans Middle School,” Page said. “It’s not going to heal all the wounds that the people face, but I think it’s a way that we can start fresh and show the community that we’ve heard your concerns, and this is our way to compromise.”
Cavender says the board cannot be the ones to start that process, but if the community comes to an agreement, the board will be in support of the changes.
“I would say the five of us are very serious about the fact that if a name change comes, it needs to come from the community,” Cavender said. “When these two schools come together when they start meeting and they decide together that they want to re-name their school, we’ll absolutely support that.”
McKinley Middle School will close its doors after the 2024-2025 academic year.