New Woodburn Community School

THIS IS WHAT IT HAS COME TO

“Anyone brought in needs to be fined at the max, and if it’s arson, it’s arson, and they are criminals,” Manilla told the AP. “And I think that is the sum of the ideas for the short term.”

The sum of the ideas. Indeed. No post-game concert behind the Mountainlair Student Union? No “fun alternative” sensibly suggested by WVU faculty to help mellow-out the boozed-up adrenaline rush of the football game. Nothing to temper the campus.

No, the “sum of the ideas” is to cede the university and town, by lowering things to the level of a rough ballgame in getting increasingly rough and tough with students who the WVU administration label as the opposition:

“When it comes to telling the public how officials will deal with future rioting following West Virginia University football games, school and Morgantown executives are adopting the same mantra. ‘It’s not a smart idea to dangle things in front of people and say, “Here’s your game plan”,’ said Corey Farris, WVU dean of students. ‘Coach Holgorsen doesn’t go out onto the field and give all the plays to the opposing team’.”

A campus-wide, town-wide violent sporting contest. What could possibly go wrong?

Morgantown Mayor Jim Manilla said he has at least one idea for future games. “We need to make sure we have double the tear gas we had over the weekend,” Manilla said.

What could possibly go wrong?

Tear Gas U. Utter mismanagement. Read the rest of this entry »

WHAT HAPPENS TO A DREAM DEFERRED?

It explodes.

Student slum housing everywhere. Morgantown and student slum housing are more or less synonymous. As radio host Hoppy Kercheval reminds us: “Morganhole”. Want to get rid of the fires? Get rid of the mountains of fuel. Kercheval has nothing to say about that.

Slum housing. Crowded classrooms.

Tuition increases above inflation more-or-less constantly.

Pugnacious-making alcohol legal and omnipresent. Mellowing marijuana criminalized, forced underground, and hypocritically and fraudulently demonized.

WVU President Clements has been correctly criticized for being far too much of a cheerleader and far too little of a badly needed leader.

Clements never misses a chance to raise his helium-filled pom-poms for WVU accomplishments and WVU stars but is utterly silent and missing in action in addressing some of the main difficult situations facing students everyday: slum housing, packed housing, expensive housing, crowded classrooms, sky-rocketed tuition.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

That’s Langston Hughes. That’s what he wrote. What does the WVU President say?  WVU President Clements is seen everywhere with the football and basketball star teams and he’s so happy! having the time of his life! and he talks about it all the time! and he makes $775,000 per year! and everyone knows! and the students are sitting in their crappy slum housing and rundown fraternity houses and cram-packed dorms and cheap but expensive compartment buildings, and damn it, they want to have a super exciting slamming time too, just like the ball stars and the super rich President Clements! Fire up the couches! Let it explode!

And WVU has a highly paid Athletic Director Oliver Luck and extremely highly paid ball coaches who have been essentially no help in any of this. (Luck is paid $550,000-700,00 per year, Football Coach Holgorsen is paid over $2.3 million per year, Basketball Coach Huggins will be paid $3 million this year.) The athletic events catalyze the fires and rioting. Fires were set when Osama bin Laden was killed but this seems an outgrowth of behavior cultured by ball game fire burning.

In response to the outburst of burning, and bottle, rock, and brick throwing at first responders, who used tear gas and pepper spray after the UT/WVU football game, the WVU administration had essentially nothing new to say. And they have sounded impressively stupid in saying it. The WVU administration has come out with no plans to effectively address the problems. Not the surface problems, and not the underlying problems, many of which go entirely ignored.

The most sensible public comment and suggestion for immediate action came from Associate Professor in the School of Medicine Joe Prudhomme who suggested, as reported by the Dominion Post, “opening up the stadium and having the game shown on the large screen and then having a concert afterward for the students.” Prudhomme noted the painfully obvious: “There has to be a fun alternative.”

There has to be a fun alternative for all the reasons detailed above. Or it will continue to explode.

And the underlying problems need to be acknowledged, studied, and acted upon as well. Or it will continue to explode.

The WVU administration needs to wake up. And get moving.

The WVU ball coaches should lend themselves to the efforts as well. Read the rest of this entry »

MONONGALIA COUNTY SCHOOLS FAILS TO PROVIDE BUS SERVICE FOR STUDENTS

This morning, parents were met with the following notice:

Monongalia County Schools: General Announcement

10-5-12 Bus 223 is not running his AM run (Cassville area, River Rd & Hidden Valley)

Just yesterday, the Dominion Post appropriately and finally editorialized:

Time to get hands on the wheel

“…students who are bused to schools far and near for their education are being advised to first determine whether or not their bus route has been cancelled from one day to another. …these bus routes should never be subject to such circumstances. Icy roads, blizzards, flooding, traffic accidents, we understand, can cancel bus routes. But random shortages of certified drivers, no. …the Monongalia County Board of Education (BOE) [needs]…to provide a long overdue solution … salaries and benefits packages being offered to our bus drivers are not just not competitive, they are seemingly puny. …the county ended the past fiscal year on a very positive note. That would appear to be one place the BOE might be able to start weighing in with a solution.”

Bravo! a long overdue editorial – albeit soft-pedaled.

The Dominion Post editors appeared rightly alarmed by the bizarre letter sent out a week or two earlier by Mon Schools Superintendent Devono stating that students could no longer depend on the school district to provide transportation. Monongalia County School students now need to check every day to see if a bus will be available for them.

A day before its editorial, the Dominion Post reported the equally alarming words of Mon Schools Supervisor of Transportation Paul Christopher who in trying to explain a busing shortage told the newspaper that family member deaths of five bus drivers occurring over a two week span just could not be planned for. Clue-bus to Supervisor Christopher and Mon Schools: Multiple family emergencies over the span of two weeks do happen, sometimes on a fairly regular basis.

As we stated over a year ago in “Bus Driver Shortage: No Way Around It – Need To Raise The Pay, Improve Conditions” (August 22, 2011), Mon Schools transportation needs to fix its glaringly obvious fundamental problems. This of course is the responsibility and the failure of the current ridiculous and largely incompetent school board, school administration, and bus supervision:

IS SEVEN MONTHS DISTANT

As of August 22, 2012, the West Virginia Division of Highways has set May 1, 2013, as the target completion date for the Eastwood Mileground Roundabout. That is 3 weeks before the last scheduled day of school. DOH:

“Stage 1 Construction: This [roundabout] project has an Interim Completion Date of May 1, 2013…. Stage 1 Construction shall be complete with the roundabout and school access road open to permanent, uninterrupted traffic flow in the final plan condition.”

[Update: the roundabout stage 1 completion date has now been pushed back to July, 2013.] The DOH has reportedly denied Mon Schools any access/egress for Eastwood via highway 705. [Update: dicey and difficult temporary access/egress has now been granted by DOH via WV 705.] The 705/119 intersection roundabout now is no option until May 1. Mon Schools has no access to or from Eastwood via the Mileground, the only other possibility, unless it negotiates a right-of-way and constructs a suitable roadway. Meanwhile the school building and campus remain uncompleted.

As noted previously, Mon Schools would be foolish, at best, to try to consolidate Easton and Woodburn schools at Eastwood this school-year. Any such move continues to look less and less sensible, or even possible. Read the rest of this entry »

WHAT NEW INSANITY IS THIS?

See the West Virginia Division of Highways (DOH) map of the planned signs for the Eastwood Mileground Roundabout (at previous post and below). APPROXIMATELY 70 DOH SIGNS ARE SLATED TO BE INSTALLED AT AND AROUND THE EASTWOOD ELEMENTARY MILEGROUND ROUNDABOUT AND NOT A SINGLE SIGN INDICATES THAT EASTWOOD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IS LOCATED IN THE IMMEDIATE VICINITY. THERE IS NOT EVEN A PEDESTRIAN CROSSING SIGN. NOT ONE.

Let’s see, there are signs for Hampton Inn, and Hilton Garden Inn, and Euro-Suites Hotel.

There is a sign for Adopt A Highway Litter Control Program.

There is a 201st INF/FA Memorial Way highway sign.

There are at least 9 Yield signs.

There are at least 7 stop signs.

There are 4 signs for the Hospitals. (There are no signs for the sirens.)

There are 5 signs for Interstate 68.

There is a Begin Center Lane Only sign.

There is an End Center Lane Only sign.

There are 4 Divided Highway Signs.

There are 4 signs for the Roundabout.

There are 50 arrows on these signs.

There is a Speed Limit 50 sign.

There is a Speed Limit 40 sign.

There are 4 Speed Limit 25 signs.

There is a sign for the Stadium.

There is a Dead End sign.

There are many other signs.

But there is no sign for a school. Not one.

There is no SLOW CAUTION SCHOOL sign.

There is no SCHOOL CROSSING sign.

There is no SCHOOL SPEED LIMIT sign.

There is not even a PEDESTRIAN CROSSING sign. Nothing.

There are about 70 DOH signs and 50 arrows on those signs and there are zero signs for Eastwood Elementary there at the sole access and egress to the school.

Words fail.

And pictures are worth a thousand words?

The Eastwood Elementary Mileground roundabout is already a wreck.

Read the rest of this entry »

NOTHING CLOSE TO 15 MPH SCHOOL ZONE SPEEDS AT OR NEAR EASTWOOD ELEMENTARY

See the WV Division of Highways signs plan, below, for the Mileground roundabout at the entrance/exit to Eastwood Elementary school. Parents and students can expect to see school-front roundabout approach speeds of 40 and 50 miles per hour, and higher.

In theory, traffic speeds in the school-front roundabout will be capped at 25 mph, far above any 15 mph school zone speed limit, as specified in WV Code. In reality – look out.

Read the rest of this entry »