Preston County Superintendent & Others React to State Takeover - WBOY-TV

KINGWOOD -- The state has taken over the Preston County school system.

Superintendent of Schools, John Lofink, announced his resignation Tuesday morning, effective immediately.

In the last few years structural issues closed Central Preston and South Preston Middle Schools, then voters rejected a $50 million-dollar bond. Those problems and two reports from the Office of Educational Performance Audits led to Tuesday's decisions.

"It just hit me that maybe it's time that somebody else takes another look at this," John Lofink said.

That is why, after more than 30 years with the county, Superintendent John Lofink is leaving.

The state board of education based its decision to take over, on what it calls serious financial, personnel, facility and curriculum issues; Problems that have been plaguing the county for years.

"It was a matter of time," Lofink said, "we can't delay and continue to put off major renovation issues for a long period of time without it coming to a head."

Gus Penix, the former Superintendent of Schools for Nicholas County, has been named the interim superintendent and Larry Parsons, the current Superintendent of Mason County, will take over within 90 days. But many say no matter who is in charge, they believe Preston County Schools will move forward.

"We could care less who's in charge just as long as the needs are being met for the students," said Preston County Commission President Craig Jennings.

"It wasn't a total surprise for us, I think we knew it was coming," said Kingwood Elementary Principal Janet Nichols. "I was a little bit surprised to hear about Mr. Lofink retiring, but he has a lot of years in and we wish him well."

Lofink says he's confident that new leadership will help the county move forward.

"They're going to have to determine funding, look at the needs, look at the adjustments that are out here and start working on a place to move ahead and Preston County will move ahead."

Administrators are expected to meet the new interim Superintendent Wednesday.

It seems as if people have already forgotten all the jobs Prestonians have just lost.If the bond would have past,how many families would be losing there homes right now.preston county has alot of elderly and disabled folks living on fixed incomes.The bond should have excluded them.Then I think it passes(the bond).The board always portrays PRESTONIANS as not caring about our schools,because we don't agree to give good money away to be mishandled.Preston County I heard isn't receiving any stimulus money for road construction,go figure,if with all the jobs lost in our area,maybe Charelston and our area congressmen will get some of the school stimulus money for us.ONE FINAL THOUGHT.We still need to keep our kids in our own communities not one Middle school!!!!!!!

Granted we do NEED updated facilities for our children to use, but I do not believe that the facilities make the children or the teacher great. Let me ask you this "car", was it your "21st Century Teacher" that taught you how to spell inability? Because, if so, they taught you wrong! The teachers have NOTHING to do with the leadership of the county! They are not in the county office giving orders!

"No child left behind" is resulting in "all children left behind". Our children are not being challenged academically and they will unfortunately pay for this in the future when they are forced to compete against those children that have been. Our teachers are not the problem, we have some of the finest teachers around if allowed to do their jobs. Unfortunately, many parents look at school as free child care and nothing else. The people of Preston passed a levy at one time, and that money was poorly managed for the good of the few. It is sad that the government can find money to build top notch facilities for prisoners but not for our greatest resource, our children.

Too bad the Prosecutor and County Commission didn't do something when asked months ago. If they had done their job we might have fixed the problems and maintained local control with new leaders. These problems were pointed out months ago but all the "leadership" were in denial and only interested in covering up to save their jobs. Can you inagine if these people had been given another 70 million (the bond)to squander? They would have been able to cover up much of these problems until much later when they would be much harder to fix, all the while leaving our children in a mess.

Our children are paying for the enablility of the people in Preston to build new schools. The teaching is substandard. There is a feeling of "who cares" among the parents and teachers. We need to build 21st century schools and hire 21st century teachers.

For those that couldn't understand why the residents of Preston County refused to pass a bond, need to only read the State Board of Education's report. Once you read that, you will competely understand the foolishness of handing the administration more money.

It is obvious to anyone who takes the time to read the OEPA report that the problems in Preston County reach much further than the crumbling buildings. The many violations in personnel hiring practices and finance as well as the lack of direction to everyone from the principals down to the custodial staff, indicates a major lack of leadership ability from the board members as well as the adminsitrative county office staff.

This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled. Click here for a free download of the latest Adobe Flash Player.