West Virginia state Code:
§18-5-13. Authority of boards generally:
Each “county board” of education is “subject to…the rules of the State Board” of Education…
These rules include “Rule number 6200 of the West Virginia Board (Handbook_On_Planning_School_Facilities).” So notes WV state Superintendent Henry Marockie in his “Superintendent Interpretation” of February 15, 1991. [link corrected] Read the rest of this entry »
Want a community school at a good site?
Too damn bad!
Want your child to have a seat on a bus?
Too damn bad!
Want the buses to arrive on time?
Too damn bad!
Monongalia County Schools administration is incompetent and negligent, as we have documented in detail.
Teachers at Woodburn Elementary are forced to stay on bus duty a half hour longer than they should because the buses have been so poorly scheduled that they show up late. As a result, the students at Woodburn Elementary sometimes arrive home a half hour later than they ought to.
Does your child have a seat on the bus? Some children have to stand. Read the rest of this entry »
Why are WV Governor Joe Manchin and his cousin appointee WV SBA Director Mark Manchin violating state policy by funding a new elementary school at a hazardous site in Morgantown? Read the rest of this entry »
A good article by the Dominion Post with an odd title, “Man: Devono should lose job: Christini argues over green school site”. “Man”? Why not, “Parent”? Read the rest of this entry »
Today, WAJR reports on the unexpected student population boom in Monongalia County Schools, several hundred new students, and that the biggest boom is in the elementary schools that form a ring around Easton and Woodburn elementaries…(“North, Cheat Lake, Brookhaven, and Mountainview” elementaries) just as we have been reporting for months now.
Yet both Easton and Woodburn elementaries are slated to not only be closed but the number of available school seats will be reduced in the process, as we have also documented and reported. Read the rest of this entry »
The only online graphic of the intended WV705/US119 green school site and intersection can be found at slide 34 on the MPO/ENTRAN slide presentation online at the Monongalia Morgantown MPO website. This is currently the public’s best chance to preview potential road access to that school site. Unfortunately, the graphic shows an option that was not remotely discussed by WV DoH consultant Tom Creasey during the recent ENTRAN/DoH MPO presentation on that intersection. What’s going on?
At the MPO presentation, there was zero discussion of bisecting the armory with a through road, which the slide shows. Read the rest of this entry »
The intended approximate school property (still not purchased from WVU and not even up for WVU BoG vote to sell until November 12) is about 7 acres inside the black bold lines. The approximate school building is in red. Parking would be to the left, playgrounds to the right, and internal roundabout below (in front of the building). That’s right, a roundabout upon a roundabout just to get to the school. The site is so thin and crowded by the highways and by the intersection and by the sheer dropoff at back that there is nowhere else for vehicles to go.
WV 705 (at left) carried 23,000 vehicles per day in 2008. It is projected to carry 32,000 by 2030, in the 18th year of the intended school.
US 119 (at right and bottom) carries many thousands of vehicles per day additionally. The intersection congests at school hours morning and afternoon. The WV Division of Highways notes that even the impending road expansion (pictured above) to 4 or 5 lanes will not eliminate congestion. The expansion will increase traffic.
Because the entire long back edge of the school property is sheer dropoff and because there are no outlets away from WV 705 and US 119, the whole intersection area can congest and gridlock and lead to student entrapment. Read the rest of this entry »
Per state code below, the green school site as approved by the West Virginia School Building Authority is clearly not legal.
It is uncontroversial that the intersection of WV 705 and US 119 – where the green school is intended to be sited (which WVU would sell land for), where the $8.6 million WV SBA grant was approved for in April – is a major nexus of “arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion” carrying tens of thousands of vehicles per day. These facts automatically disqualify the location from becoming a school site, by law, per below. Read the rest of this entry »
New Woodburn Community School 