Photo by Michael Erb Wood County Board of Education Chairman Rick Olcott comments Friday morning at a special board meeting to approve personnel changes. The board also approved the creation of a virtual school teacher position, as the district hopes to attract homeschool students through the online program.

PARKERSBURG – Wood County Schools has created a virtual teaching position and hopes to see an increase in online registrations.

The Wood County School Board met Friday morning in a special session to approve staffing changes ahead of the 2019-20 school year. Teachers return to work on Monday and students start on Thursday.

Among the items approved was the creation of a virtual teacher position to oversee online classes for the school system. Superintendent Will Hosaflook said the position will be county-based and serve students across the district.

Officials said they hope the expansion of the online option will bring back students who left to be homeschooled.

Attendance director Chris Rutherford, who also oversees home schooling, said he sent about 700 flyers to home-schooled families about the new online option.

“I am inundated with phone calls” said Rutherford.

“I think it will be a big step for us to be able to offer that and hopefully get some of those students home from school,” said board member Justin Raber.

The district offered online classes through Parkersburg South High School, which serves about 127 students each day, Hosaflook said. The addition of the virtual school teaching position will allow for more enrollment across the county.

The board of directors also approved on Friday the creation of a sports events coordinator for the additional service schedule. Wood County schools require an administrator at every high school athletic event. The new position allows schools to hire a coordinator for a specific event when an administrator is not available. The additional service item pays a fixed amount of $75 per event.

“Often there is not enough coverage”, Hosaflook said. “This is open to all employees who have a director certificate, not just directors.”

The council also approved a standardized pay scale for workers at sporting events, such as ticket takers. Hosaflook said that in years past pay per event varied widely from school to school, with some paying as much as $80 while others paid $30 for the same work at similar events. .

“We had so much variance across the county,” Hosaflook said. “So now a ticket taker is a ticket taker. A college game is a college game.

Funds for the Sporting Event Coordinator and Sporting Event Workers come from the schools themselves, and while they are processed by the District Finance Department, they are reimbursed to Wood County Schools by individual programs. These payments are also subject to all taxes and social contributions if the person is an employee of the school system, officials said.

Michael Erb can be reached at [email protected]