New Woodburn Community School

MON SCHOOLS AND THE WV SBA FAIL TO INFORM THE PUBLIC THAT THE GREEN SCHOOL WOULD BE OVERCROWDED FROM THE START

On Mon Schools’ green school grant application to the WV School Building Authority (SBA Director Mark Manchin, the appointed cousin of SBA President Joe Manchin), under the section titled, “ADEQUATE SPACE FOR PROJECTED STUDENT ENROLLMENT,” Mon Schools states:

“There is adequate space for enrollment projections. Once this facility [green school] is completed [Fall 2012], redistricting will occur in the North and Cheat Lake Elementary areas due to overcrowding.”

First, as we have noted, contrary to the assertion above, which it takes an investigative research project to discover, Mon Schools continues to deny in public, either brazenly or ignorantly, that redistricting is “on the table” and connected to the green school.

Second, there is not “adequate space” in the Easton/Woodburn consolidated green school for the projected combined enrollments of Easton Elementary and Woodburn Elementary if the school is to be built for 450 students, which the grant is written for and which Mon Schools insists it “will be built to house.” Even before this fall’s boom in elementary school enrollment in Morgantown, the combined projected enrollment of Easton and Woodburn for 2012, the year the consolidated green school is to open, is 103 percent of green school capacity, with enrollment projected to climb nearly every year thereafter, again even before the recent enrollment boom, which was in all likelihood brought on by the ongoing hard economic times, as people flock to the city and fewer families can afford private school.

Mon Schools even includes the following chart in its summer request to the state Board of Education for two amendments to its Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan (one amendment to close Woodburn and Easton schools and the other amendment to build the new consolidated green school ostensibly for the Woodburn and Easton student bodies):

That’s right, Mon Schools lists the current Easton and Woodburn schools’ seating capacity as 550 (even though in the 2010 CEFP the combined seating capacity is listed as 482 (211 Easton, 271 Woodburn). Regardless of which figure one might believe, the new green school would slash seating capacity below both current capacity and projected enrollment.

Also included in Mon Schools request to the state board for the two amendments, subsequently approved, is this statement:

“The newly constructed facility is projected to be open beginning with the 2012-2013 school year with a Pre-K – grade 5 configuration housing approximately 464 students.”

An accompanying chart shows projected student enrollment growing through 2020, the last year of the chart, to 486 students (again, projected before this fall’s enrollment boom).

(Meanwhile, neighboring North Elementary (through grade 5) operated last year overcapacity as did its neighbor and feeder Suncrest Primary (through grade 3). Woodburn Elementary’s neighboring school Mountainview operated last year at 95 percent of capacity, and Woodburn’s other neighboring school Brookhaven operated near capacity and was slated for a large addition.)

So while the public has been maintaining that the school district intends to expand the green school and that it will not be a small school, and while there is every bit of evidence to conclude this, Mon Schools keeps maintaining that the new green school will “still be a small school” and that “Superintendent Devono [is] stating none [no expansion] is planned at this time.” The latter despite the school’s architect stating in email to Superintendent Devono weeks earlier that:

“the SBA school…to meet your needs it’s really about 65,000 square feet and as discussed last week we may approach a 70,000 square foot building with adequate space and expansion.”

The number of students recommended or required by state policy for a school that large is about 650 or 700 or more students. So here we see that large and ever larger school “needs” are clearly being planned for.

As we also reported earlier, in an email obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, we learn that in a 10/14/2009 email from WVU Director of Real Estate Services, Shannon Mundell, to WVU Vice President of Administration and Finance, Narvel Weese, that Mundell states in regard to the green school:

“Had a brief discussion with Mr. Devono regarding WVU’s property near and around the Mileground. He [Devono] is needing approximately 8-10 acres (10 preferred for bus turnaround).

That’s 1-3 acres more than is stipulated by the SBA for a school of 450 students.

“He was originally looking at the area across from Damon’s [1 mile down route 705, deep into North Elementary's catchment and not far from North Elementary or Suncrest Primary], but as that is our sacred American Chestnut area, he is open to suggestions. Also, with school starting prior to 8:30, the Mileground area is another viable option (maybe behind Armory?).

“Confidentially, the overflow from North [elementary] and [the entire student body of] Woodburn elementary will be placed in this school. Mr. Devono is also planning for this school to be LEED certified [i.e., green].”

In public, to the public, as we have documented in detail, the Mon School Board and the Superintendent tell a different story.

To the public, Superintendent Devono states:

“I am not recommending any attendance area from North being included into the new [green] school.”

To the public, Mon school board President Barbara Parsons:

“…no redistricting and we have vigorously maintained that position … no discussion, whatsoever, regarding any changes to North Elementary attendance area and the new school. …we said there would be no redistricting and we have vigorously maintained that position. … Any future consideration of redistricting will be at the initiative of the public.“

To the WV School Building Authority:

“Once this facility [green school] is completed [Fall 2012], redistricting will occur in the North and Cheat Lake Elementary areas due to overcrowding.”

And apparently to WVU Director Mundell (in Mundell’s words):

“Confidentially, the overflow from North [elementary] and [the entire student body of] Woodburn elementary will be placed in this school.”

So there are two stories being told here by Mon Schools, a confidential story and a public story. And the confidential story, we have learned through FOIA requests and other investigations, systematically contradicts the public story. Whether purposefully or unwittingly constructed and conveyed, the nature of these contradictory patterns of information is unlawful. One learns one thing confidentially, and the opposite thing publicly, in violation of the public’s right to know, which is enshrined in WV Code and the WV Constitution. No public agency has the right to unwittingly or purposefully deceive the public. Public agencies have a legal mandate to do the opposite, to inform. One cannot inform by deception, whether unwitting or otherwise.

The right-to-know violations are as apparent as the hazardous site violations. The green school site at the 705/119 intersection is as wrongful as the green school siting process. And both would continue all-too-familiar patterns in Monongalia County School District.

Two new well-sited modest sized elementary schools are badly needed in Monongalia County, not a terribly sited large one.