New Woodburn Community School

THE UTTER IRRESPONSIBILITY OF WVU

In selling the 705/119 (Mileground) intersection land to Monongalia County Schools, WVU would be ignoring and overriding the will of much of the “community at large” whom WVU states this is properly “an issue for”:

• WVU apparently would ignore the petition gathered in a few short weeks signed by hundreds of people opposing a new school on the Mileground site and calling for a new school at Woodburn.
• WVU apparently would ignore the February 2010 letter from Morgantown Mayor Bill Byrne to School Board President Nancy Walker: “On behalf of Morgantown City Council, I am writing to express concerns…. We feel that it is imperative to educate Woodburn Elementary and Suncrest Primary students at their current locations….”
• WVU apparently would ignore the many letters and opinions published in the Dominion Post newspaper opposing the Mileground site and calling for a new school at Woodburn.
• WVU apparently would ignore the great support by passing motorists for the 705/119 intersection protest against the Mileground site.
• WVU apparently would ignore the overwhelming body of evidence by researchers, including those at WVU, demonstrating the educational and community advantages to relatively small sized neighborhood schools.
• WVU apparently would ignore the added difficulty of hiring and retaining faculty in an area with a dearth of relatively small neighborhood elementary schools.
• WVU would apparently ignore the concerns of taxpayers at whose expense the university would make money on the sale of costly and unneeded land that additionally has unknown and potentially very costly mine-fill expense and liabilities.
• WVU refuses to sell its rather more school-appropriate land located well across route 705, set back off 119. Thus, WVU’s ostensible concerns for the community in this case unfortunately have to be taken with a grain of salt.
• WVU apparently would ignore that the School Board and Superintendent are pushing for the Mileground site as opposed to the Woodburn site in a very highly suspect manner and in increasing isolation from the larger community.

Thus, contrary to its proper understanding of school siting as “an issue for the larger community,” WVU would recklessly, negligently, and hypocritically act against the larger community in the 705/Mileground land sale deal.