New Woodburn Community School

HAND-IN-HAND WITH BAD ADMINISTRATION AT MON SCHOOLS

While the signs have been bad the past two or three years, preceding the opening of Eastwood Elementary on the Mileground, the facts and the science have been worse, as documented at this site in extensive detail.

But the many telling signs continue to be foreboding, including the most recent one: yesterday a student was struck by a car “brushing” past him and his mother on Parsons Street by Woodburn Elementary. Amazing this hasn’t happened long since, so badly has Mon Schools neglected the Woodburn Elementary campus. There are zero sidewalks there on Parsons Street where it cuts through the middle of the Woodburn Elementary campus. No sidewalks along this crumbling stretch daily full of students, parents, teachers, and others. Sidewalks are a basic safety feature. Mon Schools knows this, is required to know this. Why has it provided no sidewalks on this heavily walked street that runs not along but through the school campus and is ringed by parking? Mon Schools has not even painted simple crosswalks. And Parsons Street also lacks even a stop sign, and no crosswalk either, amazingly, where it bisects the campus and comes to a T at Fortney Street. Why does Mon Schools persist with a third world mentality at the expense of its students and their parents? Why no badly needed and pedestrian-friendly safety basics and improvements?

It was the city that built the sidewalk along the playground on both Fortney Street and Richwood Avenue. It is the city that pays for the Charles Avenue crossing guard. What has Mon Schools done? Mon Schools has packed the Woodburn Elementary campus with more students this year than ever before without making any badly needed safety and space improvements. The campus was already badly neglected by Mon Schools. And now this year, the small art room in the all-purpose outbuilding has been converted into a regular third grade classroom because Mon Schools loaded up the campus with more students than ever. The art teacher now “floats.” Read the rest of this entry »

WV DOT/DOH MUST ACT NOW IN ATTEMPT TO LIMIT THE DAMAGE WROUGHT BY MON SCHOOLS AND WV SBA & BOE

As noted at the end of the previous post:

It is certainly possible though unlikely that Eastwood Elementary will open before the construction of the Mileground intersection roundabout with its school access/egress spoke. While Monongalia County BOE Superintendent Devono has repeatedly told the media that Eastwood is on track to open in late January or early February, he has all the while told BOE employees (who have stated publicly at various school meetings) that Eastwood will not open until “spring” [April, being mentioned] – thus affording the WV Division of Highways what should be ample time to build the roundabout school spoke into the congested highways. [Update: A recent FOIA request of the DOH reveals that the roundabout, including the school access/egress spoke, is now scheduled for a May 1, 2013 completion date.] [Update 2: dicey and difficult temporary access/egress now to be allowed via WV 705.] [Update 3: DOH roundabout completion date now pushed back to July.] [Update 4: First day of classes for students at Eastwood is now scheduled to be April 3, 2013 – in the teeth of major highway and intersection construction, a mere 7 weeks before the last school day – school times will begin and end 45 minutes earlier than the current schedule.]

Of course, it is ridiculous, irresponsible, and especially dangerous to move into the consolidated intersection school of Eastwood in “spring” when there would be only a few weeks of school left, about 6 weeks (if few or no snow days; the second to last week of May is the scheduled last week of school in Monongalia County for 2013). The bus routes and classroom shifting and other building logistics are daunting, and area drivers would not have time to adjust to the impending roundabout if it is even built by then. Plus, the adjacent highways’ congestion will not only remain but is expected to worsen dramatically for an additional year or two or more, both given the imposition of Eastwood and pending construction of the additional lanes on the Mileground. (Even with additional lanes across the Mileground, congestion is only expected to be reduced not eliminated. Meanwhile traffic crashes are expected to increase, at what is already a hot-spot for smash-ups.) As explained in previous posts, there is no reason of any sort, contractual or otherwise, why Monongalia County Schools could not, at the very least, delay any shift to the consolidated intersection school and every reason why it should.

Furthermore, the WV Division of Highways (DOH) should feel legal and safety obligations to totally re-vision and move the WV 705/US 119 “Mileground” intersection as far away from Eastwood as possible. To public knowledge, the DOH has done nothing in this regard. The DOH basically planned and designed the highways intersection in its known current design before the DOH had any idea that a new school would be constructed at this commuter intersection. To the public’s knowledge, with the exception of adding a roundabout spoke direct to Eastwood Elementary’s front door, the DOH has not troubled to change its unwitting early design, not fundamentally. What have been even any slight student and commuter safety and health modifications? Such failings by the DOH, in addition to the failings by Mon Schools, would create fertile ground for future personal injury lawsuits (against the DOH and Mon Schools, the WV School Building Authority, and others) based on possible, probable, and expected incidents and fallout in and around that intersection, especially in relation to students’ health and school and commuter/commercial traffic. Read the rest of this entry »

WEST VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT AFFIRMS DISMISSAL OF EASTWOOD LAWSUIT

Claims it cannot “infringe” on the state’s “prerogative” to decide on new school siting.

The Supreme Court ruled against the Eastwood lawsuit Petition, unanimously: Memorandum Decision.

By the time you get to the fourth page of the ruling you finally find that the decision not to enforce the Policy 6200 state Rule ban against unusually hazardous new school sites hinges on “the heavy burden a petitioner undertakes when challenging a discretionary action” and that it is “normally inappropriate” for the Court to intervene “unless the right or duty to be enforced is nondiscretionary. The importance of the term ‘nondiscretionary’ cannot be overstated – the judiciary cannot infringe on the decision-making left to the executive branch’s prerogative.“

Apparently, the Court states it could have acted (“normally” would not have but could have) to enforce Policy 6200 in regard to health and safety, but for unstated reasons relating to the school site, chose not to. It’s as if the Supreme Court is “taking the 5th” against self-incrimination. After all, the major commuter intersection of the Mileground Road and WV 705 is a profoundly stupid and unhealthy and unsafe place for Eastwood Elementary, or for any new school.

There you have it: West Virginia Board of Education Policy and Rule 6200 202.06 (which is administered by the WV School Building Authority) bans new school sites at specific unusually hazardous, unsafe locations, yet for unspecified reasons regarding the multiple dangers at the Mileground site, the Court chose not to enforce the state Rule ban. Court to the state: This isn’t our mess; this is yours. You are the decider. You own it.

Unfortunately this Court decision enables potentially, even likely, dire consequences for future students of Eastwood Elementary on the Mileground.

Now across the area, it is all the rage to be angry at the Mileground intersection new school siting because of “suddenly” arrived traffic problems and worries. Read the rest of this entry »