WOODSFIELD — Emotions ran high as the Switzerland of Ohio Board of Education voted unanimously Thursday to eliminate grades 9-12 from the school campus in Beallsville.

Beallsville High School students and their parents and teachers showed up to the meeting at Swiss Hills Career Center in droves, hoping to sway board members from voting to close the high school. Following the 5-0 vote, those same students, teachers and parents walked out of the meeting in protest with tears in their eyes.

One parent in attendance shouted that the board members ought to be ashamed of themselves while exiting the meeting.

Incoming senior Lyndsey Kinney said she believes Beallsville and its schools have more heart than the rest of the Monroe County community.

“We have Relay for Life, where we raise money for cancer patients. We just have so much spirit. There’s not a single day that goes by that there aren’t kids laughing and giggling at school,” Kinney said. “This really sucks. They took our school, they took our heart, they took my senior year. We would’ve been the first graduating class to go from kindergarten through 12th grade in that school building.”

The current Beallsville school building, which has housed pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, opened in 2012, meaning that no graduating class has ever spent its entire school journey in the structure.

Switzerland of Ohio Superintendent Phil Ackerman said that lack of student enrollment was the reason for the vote to close the school.

“There were 53 students projected to be in Beallsville High School, nine through twelve, next year,” he said.

He added that there would only be 14 juniors and seniors on site, with some of those 14 taking college preparation classes off of the school’s campus.

“We have two high schools that are left in Monroe County, River High School and Monroe Central High School. So east of Beallsville, out toward Clarington, towards the (Ohio) river, those students will be assigned to River High School. The ones west of Beallsville, out toward Malaga, will be assigned to Monroe Central, because that’s the direction you would travel in terms of our transportation network,” Ackerman said.

He noted that if any student in either of those areas does not want to attend the school they would be assigned to, they will be accepted through open enrollment to the other school.

In addition to eliminating grades 9-12 on the Beallsville campus, seventh and eighth grades will be moved from the high school to Beallsville Elementary School.

Ackerman said he wanted to make it clear that no staff member will be affected by the closing.

“Our employees that have a contract for ’25-’26 there at Beallsville High School to teach those 9-12 students will continue to be employed by the district, but it’s not going to be the same because there’s not going to be 9-12 students there. So we have a process in our collective bargaining agreement with our teachers that requires us to start there, and I’ve already talked with them. So next week we will meet, they’ll provide input, feedback, then it’ll be a matter of meeting with those individual teachers and moving this along, because some folks may be needed there at the school because we’re still going to have pre-K through eight at the Beallsville campus. But others, they may be teaching, but they may be in another building,” Ackerman said.

He added that not only are the teachers’ jobs safe, but all Beallsville school employees will be able to work at either River High School or Monroe Central High School.

“Everyone would continue to be employed, but they might be working somewhere else. So it’ll be the same conversation with those classified employees as the teachers,” he said.

Michaela Murdy is a parent of a student at Beallsville High School. She said she believes this decision will split up the community of Beallsville.

“The kids from Beallsville are amazing. They’re humble, they’re kind, and you don’t see that anywhere else in the district. They fight for everything that they have, every win that they get. They fight, and they earn it,” Murdy said.

“I worry about the community of Beallsville. The property taxes are going to go down now, the businesses, there were more businesses that were coming to Beallsville, and the diner is right there, and the Convenient. What’s gonna happen?

“It’s so sad,” she continued. “I can sit on my front porch and watch the homecoming parades, and we love that, because we can sit out there with the dogs and watch all the kids and support all the kids, and then walk straight down to the football field.”

Following the decision, the students, parents and teachers consoled each other. The students – many wearing the school’s colors of blue and white and even its Blue Devils mascot – locked arms and sang the Beallsville High School alma mater as a tribute to the school that has existed for nearly 100 years. The original Beallsville High School was established in 1928.