(Photo by Douglass Huxley) Jonathan Farley, director of information technology, talked to the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday night about changing seven existing 200-day Technology Support Specialist contracts to seven 210-day TSS positions.

PARKERSBURG — Jonathan Farley, director of information technology, proposed changes to the Management Information Systems (MIS) Department to the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday night aimed at improving year-round technology support for staff, students and the community.

Farley outlined a plan to eliminate seven 200-day Technology Support Specialist (TSS) contracts and replace them with seven 210-day TSS contracts. He said this would allow staff to focus on fixing and maintaining technology.

“This year, since the beginning of the school year, we have closed out just under 5,000 tickets,” Farley said, emphasizing how often teachers rely on technology support in “stressful situations” when classroom tools fail.

“I’m very proud of my team, so let that be known,” he said.

He also proposed eliminating two 200-day Technology Integration Specialist (TIS) contracts and instead creating two 261-day Coordinator of Organizational Support and Technology Services positions. He said while TSS staff handle repairs, TIS and the new coordinator roles focus on helping teachers and staff integrate technology into instruction and operations.

“I would like to start [the TSS contracts] seven working days before the teacher contract starts,” he said. “This will allow us to rebuild labs, finish E-Rate projects, [and] get anybody that’s in the building already, teachers ready to go for that first day, whether it’s a printer, their workstation, their MacBook, their iPad, their Apple TV, their ViewSonic.”

He said as the school year ends, those additional days are intended to handle device collection and classroom changes.

“With the rest of the 10 days, I’d like to add those on to the end,” he said. “That way we could finish the iPad collection process, tearing down of labs, redoing classrooms, because every summer it seems like everybody likes to move. That would give us that time to do all of that… the adequate time for opening and closing the tech in the schools.”

Board member Ron Tice wanted to make sure the public understood that much of the cost would be covered by federal funds, not the district’s general fund.

“I just want to make sure that the public is aware… that on these two particular 261-day contracts, 100 days of that will be paid by the federal government,” Tice said. “So we’re only paying for the 161 (days).”

The board approved the changes later in the meeting.

Olivia Reeder, vice president of instructional advancement at West Virginia University of Parkersburg, spoke to the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday night about partnering with the college on its Riverhawk Ready program, which aims to help students with the enrollment process.

Reeder said the program is designed to remove barriers to college for high school students — especially first-generation students — by simplifying the enrollment process and providing early, ongoing support.

“We are an open enrollment institution, which means anyone can enroll with us. But what we found out is we have a lot of students, particularly first-generation students, who are still hitting barriers because they just don’t understand the process and they have no one at home to help them,” she said.

She said students no longer have to complete a full application to get started. She said they now simply opt in via an online portal connected to their existing high school system.

“With this program, students will simply have to opt in to going to college. There’ll be an online portal that will be accessed through their learning management system… They go in, submit their name and say that they want to be part of the WVU Parkersburg, the Riverhawk Flock.”

She said once students opt in, the college takes over the back-end work.

“So all they have to do is say, I want to go there. We will help them get through their FAFSA. We will collect their transcripts. We will do all of the back work.”

Reeder said this does not lock students into attending WVUP.

She said the program is tied to a broader mission: making higher education affordable and building a strong local workforce.

“We want to get as many people into careers in the Mid-Ohio Valley as we can. Because if we have a great, strong workforce, we have a great, strong community,” Reeder said.