New Woodburn Community School

SCHOOL SITING SAFETY MANDATES EXIST FOR COMPELLING – LIFE AND DEATH – REASONS

If any basic lesson can be (re)learned from the Penn State child sexual assault and cover-up scandal, it is that moral depravity and loss of “institutional control” often assume the most mundane disguises: Official suits and ties, athletic dress, and casual wear at Penn State have gone hand-in-hand with child molestation and rape, assault, child neglect, child abuse, cover-up, and fraud by officials.

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So too in the Eastwood Elementary siting scandal in Monongalia County by the Monongalia County Board of Education and the Superintendent’s office and the West Virginia School Building Authority, which in collaboration with West Virginia University’s highest officials and Board have arranged for the construction and future operation of a new elementary school at a heavily traveled, commuter, arterial highway intersection, in specific and explicit violation of state student safety mandate, state government rulings, and various related legal rulings. The similarities of the scandals are striking.

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Monongalia County Schools Board of Education and the Monongalia County Superintendent and the West Virginia School Building Authority Director and Board, and other officials, have placed themselves (with very many schoolchildren) far out on a treacherous limb that they are determinedly sawing off.

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And what lies below that long and crooked limb of negligence? Exactly what the West Virginia Division of Highways (DOH) predicts in its analysis of the impending Eastwood Elementary schoolside arterials:

“Crash experience is expected to increase” and “Capacity [congestion] issues at intersections may remain” … The DOH funded Mileground Traffic Report notes on page 21 that for the impending Eastwood schoolside “Five-Lane [highway]…vehicular conflicts and resulting crashes would be expected to increase when compared to the existing three-lane section and as traffic volumes grow.”

A quick look around the country shows what crashes and calamities one may expect:

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PARALLELS AND PERMUTATIONS: EASTWOOD ELEMENTARY AND THE PENN STATE CHILD SEX CRIME SCANDAL

The Eastwood Elementary new school site scandal is an even more difficult case to crack than the Penn State child sex crime scandal, which at Penn State and in Pennsylvania has revealed an institutional culture of aggression, silence, and neglect, a culture of muffling and shutting up those who would speak out.

In West Virginia, with the involvement of West Virginia University officials and Monongalia County and WV state education officials, the case of the Eastwood Elementary school site scandal reveals a statewide culture of officials looking away from grave student safety violations – and other basic violations – in which they are entangled or for which they are directly responsible, a culture of ignoring their fundamental responsibilities, a culture of willful blindness to the self-evident. It’s a culture of officials who do as they please, as quietly as possible. And even when grave violations are made public, they act with impunity.

As the Penn State child sex crime scandal gets dirtier and dirtier, as seen in the recent leaks of Penn State officials’ emails following the conviction of Jerry Sandusky, the parallels and permutations to the Eastwood Elementary new school site scandal grow more clear. Just as the Penn State officials “were interested in protecting the institution and not the children,” so too all the West Virginia officials involved in dangerously siting Eastwood Elementary are apparently more interested in protecting “the school” than the children. However, in the Penn State scandal, the Pennsylvania Attorney General is suing the Penn State officials; in the WVU/SBA/Mon Schools scandal, the West Virginia Attorney General is defending the SBA and Mon Schools against an ongoing lawsuit.

A brand spanking new school, Eastwood Elementary, at the US 119/ WV 705 arterial intersection, foisted and shoved onto the public by local and state officials, will be small comfort to any and all children smashed or daily polluted by the congested, heavily-traveled traffic vortex at the new school site.

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

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