For The State Journal 

In a town like Paden City, where kids still walk to school, losing a high school to consolidation would be a devastating blow, Mayor William Fox said.

“This is a community, and a high school is very important to a community,” Fox said. “People know what it would do to the town if they lose it. Everyone recognizes that, and everyone is working together to say we can’t let this happen. It’s pulling us together, to work as a team.”

But with student enrollment nose-diving, the Wetzel County Board of Education is faced with tough decisions: With just 105 students in grades nine through 12, Paden City is the smallest of  the county’s four high schools. (By comparison, Magnolia, the largest, has 463 students in grades 9-12. Valley has 209, and Hundred 113.)

Consultants have worked for some time on the district’s comprehensive educational facilities plan, a kind of operational blueprint that maps out the school district’s plans over 10 years. Though school officials insist no decisions have been made, it’s no secret that consolidation is on the table.

“Ideally, if we had an interstate running through the center of the county, we could build one school,” Wetzel County Assistant School Superintendent Jay Yeager said. “But, geographically we’re a large county.

“Hundred High School is almost 50 miles from New Martinsville; there’s no feasible way we could bus those students here — at least, not without students being on buses for an enormous amount of time. It’s the same with Valley. … It would be very difficult to transport the students.”

Paden City, on the other hand, is just five miles from New Martinsville. That makes it, on the surface at least, the logical target.

“People always want to close the little schools down; they say they’re too expensive to keep open,” said Paden City Athletic Director Fred King, one of the leaders of the opponents. “But I say it’s too expensive to close them.” Fox said communities suffer when schools close, beginning with property values.

“And with companies looking to come in, the first thing they want to know is what kind of schools you have,” he said. “And if we have to tell them there aren’t any in Paden City, that’s certainly going to be a big negative in selling the city.” Then there’s the human factor: While bigger schools might mean more electives for students to choose from, they also mean fewer opportunities for kids to be involved in extracurricular activities.

“The big schools, they’re always looking for guns and weapons,” he adds. “We’re looking for kids. When I look out the window, I can see a bike rack filled with bikes and four picnic tables so kids can go out and eat their lunch.

“At noon, they might go home for lunch or across the street to the sandwich bar. And what an academic experience they get here.”

There’s also an active parent group that’s raised countless thousands of dollars for projects benefiting the school and community for more than 50 years. That includes a $400,000-plus basketball/community building.

“In 1950, we had our first graduating class here at Paden City,” King said. “What people had to go through, raising the money for it – first they got enough money to buy the acreage, then the phys ed teachers had their kids go out and get the rocks out. Booster groups raised money to build (amenities).

“They got a call one day that 16 light standards were in, but they had no way to get them (on site). In a half hour, they had about 200 people down there, along with the band and cheerleaders, and townspeople carried them on their shoulders. In a big city, that probably doesn’t mean a thing, but that’s what this community is about – we’d do anything for our kids.”

Yeager, though, said the board’s hands are tied by a school funding formula that ties state aid to student enrollment.

Until that changes, boards faced with a dwindling student population are going to have to consider unpopular fixes.

“There’s a certain amount the state will pay, and if you go beyond that, you have to use local tax money,” he said. “But Wetzel County is not a county with a lot of industry in it – most people work in Marshall County or across the river in Ohio. Our largest employer is the Wetzel County Board of Education; our second largest is Wal-Mart.”

He also stressed the board has not been presented with the consultants’ proposed 10-year facilities plan, nor has any decision been made to close a school. Public hearings would be required for each, and none has been scheduled.

But closing Paden City could easily backfire: The Wetzel-Tyler county border divides the town, and with open enrollment students might decide to opt out of Wetzel County schools altogether in favor of attending the smaller Tyler Consolidated in Middlebourne.

“I graduated from here,” said Kim Huffman, a substitute teacher/coach and a 1989 graduate of the school. “I want it to stay open. The whole community is fighting to keep it open. It would just about destroy a small town like this if it closes.  It’s the heart of our community, and we’re not going to go without a fight.”