The Upshur County Board of Education, currently under state control, has scrapped plans to close Tennerton Elementary School and merge it with Buckhannon Academy Elementary.

Superintendent Christy Miller made the announcement at the opening of Tuesday’s board meeting, saying the school system could not come up with enough money to fund its part of a proposed $19 million renovation of Academy that would be necessary to accommodate the increased student population.

“As we continue to review and refine our estimated funds available for renovations to our existing facilities, we determined that we will not be able to fund our portion of the money necessary to renovate Buckhannon Academy to accommodate the students from Tennerton Elementary School, even if we were fortunate enough to obtain partial funding from the School Building Authority,” Miller said. “As such, we will not be recommending the closure of Tennerton Elementary School at this time, and the hearings scheduled for November 17 are canceled.”

The planned consolidation of Rock Cave Elementary into French Creek Elementary will continue, with public meetings scheduled for November.

“This, however, does not impact the closure of Rock Cave Elementary, merging into French Creek Elementary, and those hearings will still take place as scheduled on November 13, 2025,” Miller said.

Miller submitted the $19 million Academy project to the SBA this fall. Plans called for extensive classroom renovations, demolishing older parts of the school, a redesigned parking area and more. The school system hoped to receive about $17 million from the state and would have to fund the remaining $1.9 million locally. The plan was to use money saved from closing the two schools to pay the local portion.

The reversal of the Tennerton closure comes less than a week after the school system announced public hearings in November regarding the two consolidations. You can read about that by clicking here.

In August, Miller formally announced a plan for sweeping changes to facilities in Upshur County. In addition to the elementary school consolidations, the proposal calls for merging Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School and Buckhannon-Upshur High School. You can read about the full proposal here.