SPECIAL TO NEW WOODBURN COMMUNITY SCHOOL

DNR Reverses Deer Population Policy, Set 33 Years Ago, In Face Of Intense Public Pressure

By Victor Rip

This April – after intense repeated outcries against urban deer hunts in West Virginia, and after my own scathing article about destructive DNR deer policies (and perhaps in face of a proposed bill in the WV Legislature to cap deer herds? mentioned in a letter to the editor in the local newspaper) – the Natural Resources Commission was forced to consider major deer population changes proposed by the the WV Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in February.

The Charleston Gazette reports that:

“Paul Johansen, assistant wildlife chief for the DNR, called the [DNR] plan “a major retooling” of the DNR’s approach to deer management.”

…”DNR officials set future deer-population goals at 20 to 35 deer per square mile, depending upon forest type, human population density and other factors. Herd levels in the most overpopulated counties currently range between 60 and 100 deer per square mile.”

For decades, DNR policy grew the state-wide deer herd, attempting to average 40 deer per square mile, to benefit hunters – at the expense of farmers, the timber industry, the safety of people on the roads, crash insurance premiums, people who prioritize non-violence, and the health of wildlife and the deer themselves. This reported DNR policy change of reducing and capping deer herds between 20 and 35 deer per square mile essentially abolishes and reverses the old destructive policy. Read the rest of this entry »

YOU DON’T BUILD SCHOOLS FOR SMALL CHILDREN AT HIGH TRAFFIC INTERSECTIONS

You don’t do it, if you have a lick of common sense. Evidently, Mon Schools does not.

You don’t do it, if you have any idea what comprises a quality educational location: a safe place, a quiet place, a clean place, an ecologically inviting place. The Mileground intersection is none of these.

You don’t do it it, if the location violates basic and vital state student safety mandates. The Eastwood intersection site violates multiple provisions of crucial state mandates.

You don’t build a school for small children adjacent to multiple four and five lane arterial highways, if you are little more than brain dead, or heart dead, or even respectful of crucial state safety mandates. The Mon Schools administration and school board: pathetic and worse.

The pre-k and kindergarten wing of Eastwood Elementary would be about twice as close to the WV 705/Mileground intersection as North Elementary is from WV 705, that same super busy four lane highway that a pre-k student from North ran into, all alone, this past week, as widely reported, after running away from North Elementary completely undetected.

In other words, the predictable coming highway calamity at Eastwood Elementary very nearly happened far ahead of schedule of Eastwood’s completion of construction. The North Elementary building is located near this same hazardous highway that the Eastwood site borders but the North building is twice the distance away from the highway as would be the Eastwood building. Read the rest of this entry »

UNPOPULAR SCHOOL BOARD AND ADMINISTRATION SUBSIST IN THE SHADOWS

Voter turnout in Monongalia County yesterday during the election of two school board members was 22 percent of registered voters, and a much smaller fraction of voting age citizens.

School board incumbent Nancy Walker received 40 percent of the vote of the 22 percent of registered voters who cast ballots. Do the math and it works out that the percentage of the voting age population who voted for Walker was in the single digits, about 9 percent.

Newcomer Ron Lytle received even somewhat less support: 32 percent of the vote of the 22 percent of registered voters who cast ballots – about 7 percent of the voting age population.

West Virginia code mandates that school board members be elected during the spring primary elections when voter turnout is always lower than in the fall general elections. This law should be changed. It allows school boards and administrations to exist and operate with far too little public involvement, let alone oversight. Read the rest of this entry »

DOUBLING DOWN ON DANGEROUS

May 6th, 2010: “When The Dominion Post asked [Monongalia County Schools Superintendent Frank Devono] if he was concerned about [Eastwood Elementary] school traffic traveling through the [impending WV705/Mileground] roundabout, Devono said he’d never viewed it as a concern.”

The vast majority of people have expressed a very different view. Various local residents and officials quoted in the media – Read the rest of this entry »

SCHOOL BOARD NEEDS CHANGE

Your chance to vote for two new members to the Monongalia County School Board arrives on Tuesday May 8 (also in early voting). While most races on the ballot are preliminary primary races, the school board race is final. Read the rest of this entry »

YOU DON’T KNOW. NO ONE KNOWS. NO ONE CAN KNOW. AND THAT’S A WRONG.

You can’t see a traffic crash before it happens. You can’t see toxic vehicle exhaust as it seeps through the air and enters a lung. You can’t see gasoline vapors from an as yet to be built gas station poisoning air and lungs. You can’t see a gas explosion and fire before it happens. You can’t see a huge congested roundabout intersection up in the field by the school near the front doors before it is built. No one knows, not even the West Virginia Division of Highways what will work and what will not, at first or in the future. No one knows to what extreme traffic will increase, except that it will and by a lot. You can’t see the dangers, damages, hazards, and potentially lethal conditions impending but you can know with certainty that they would exist and that this would be unlawful, wrong, and potentially lethal for any school children in that area.

The nearby alternate sites for a school or schools are stable and knowable and safe. You can see it, and you can know it.

Should schoolchildren be asked to pay with their health and their lives for a school located where the school officials prefer to locate it, in violation, no less, of state mandates? How dare these officials? Read the rest of this entry »

ENFORCE THE LAW

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A large multi-lane roundabout is planned to be built by WV Division of Highways (DOH) this year adjacent to the impending Eastwood Elementary site at the intersection of WV 705 and US 119/Mileground Road. In fact, the new school site would lose land (2 acres) to the state by eminent domain, to create the intersection relocation and expansion. This sprawling roundabout with its divided highway spokes would cover an additional 2 acres, approximately, that border and entangle the Eastwood schoolgrounds.

State Law requires that roads bordering and extending 125 feet from schoolgrounds have a maximum speed limit of 15 mph, which would and should include the entire Mileground roundabout and all of its spokes and an additional stretch of WV 705: Read the rest of this entry »

PAYING IN LIFE AND LIMB AND IN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR “JUDGMENTS AGAINST…WV DIVISION OF HIGHWAYS” AND OTHER STATE AGENCIES

The State Journal reported yesterday that the state of West Virginia is obligated to pay “$8.5 million in judgments against West Virginia agencies this year,” including:

340 judgments totaling $2 million aris[ing] from accidents on state roadways, several of them fatal. 6 of these claims against the Division of Highways exceed $100,000.

Impending Eastwood Elementary at the WV 705 / US 119 state maintained intersection and arterial highways on the Mileground: need more be said? Read the rest of this entry »

DOH PREDICTS CRASH INCREASE ON 5-LANE MILEGROUND HIGHWAY EXPANSION BY EASTWOOD SITE

See page 19 of the “Mileground Road Traffic: Final Report“:

The West Virginia Division of Highways (DOH) 5-lane expansion plan for the Mileground
DOES NOT

“eliminate the most severe crash types – head-on and right-angle crashes.”

In fact, the DOH analysis shows:

“Crash experience is expected to increase”
“Capacity [congestion] issues at intersections may remain”

Head-on crash increase, T-bone crash increase, continued congestion: not exactly a safe and healthy environment for a new school, where young children would travel into and out of for up to 7 years, pre-k through 5th grade. And not exactly legal.

The Mileground Traffic Report notes on page 21 that for

“the Five-Lane alternative…vehicular conflicts and resulting crashes would be expected to increase when compared to the existing three-lane section and as traffic volumes grow.”

MORE CRASHES. Think it’s bad now? The Report says to expect ever more crashes and “vehicular conflicts.”

MORE TRAFFIC. Not only will added lanes and ongoing area and regional growth bring more traffic to this vortex, so will the “new traffic signal system being installed” increase the flow of traffic from the nearby Stewartstown/705 intersection, causing “downstream demand [increased traffic] at the [Eastwood site] WV 705/Mileground Road intersection [to] be intensified somewhat (during the p.m. peak),” that is during school release hours. (Mileground Traffic Report, page 21.)

MORE TRAFFIC AND MORE CRASHES are expected by the DOH on the Mileground by the Eastwood site. This is a dangerous scenario and a wrongful one for the public school students of a new school, all of whom would find their safety put at risk on a daily basis and all of whom would be flooded with health debilitating vehicle exhaust and likely gas station fumes.

The traffic and crash health and safety dangers are bad enough and wrongful at the Eastwood site. And the commerce and industry on the Mileground strip are unhealthy and dangerous for children too: “Gas Stations Are Toxic Neighbors.” 

Read the rest of this entry »

EVER MORE UNCERTAIN

Today the Dominion Post reports that yesterday, at the Morgantown Traffic Commission meeting, Chairman Frank Gmeindl of the Morgantown Bicycle Board and Chairman Christiaan Abildso of the Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board both “expressed concerns” about the DOH Mileground highway expansion plans which would build a 5-lane road with a continuous center turning lane rather than build a 4 lane divided highway with a median as was recommended by the Greater Morgantown Metropolitan Planning Organization.

“They’re [DOH] turning it into Patteson [Drive], and I think Patteson is one of the most dangerous corridors in Morgantown,” [Chairman] Abildso said. “The Police are there every other day [for accidents]. … It’s just not safe.“

“From a safety factor, it’s clear that having a median is safer,” said Chairman Gmeindl.

These concerns reflect not only the future danger of the Mileground highway but the current danger as well, as Morgantown City Council member Charlie Byrer memorably put it a year and a half ago:

“The only pedestrians on the Mileground are dead ones.“

What a great place for a new school! Read the rest of this entry »

IT WOULD ONLY GET WORSE

In ways both known and unknown – studied, predictable, and probable.

Read the rest of this entry »

MORE VIOLATION

The Greater Morgantown Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) site shows that the WV Division of Highways (DOH) right-of-way at the 705/Mileground intersection extends into what would be the Eastwood Elementary campus internal bus circle at the front door of the school to-be-built. (See below, or see page 6 of the PDF “Flyer” for the Jan. 24th DOH meeting at Easton Elementary, the DOH right-of-way boundary.)

That violates the DOH Driveway Manual Rules and Regulations for mid-size community facilities along state roads (page 36, “Internal Circulation”), which requires a minimum of 120-150 feet setback for such a feature, not a less-than-zero foot setback.

In fact, the school building itself, including the front door, would be only 120-150 feet from the DOH arterial highways right-of-way. In other words, the campus bus loop, by DOH Rules and Regulations, is supposed to be where the building is, and the building is supposed to be beyond that. Which can’t happen because there is no room, nothing but a drop-off beyond.

If the DOH allows such a violation of its Rules and Regulations, which are safety provisions, and if there is a serious accident in relation to the disregard of such regulations, then the DOH should be added to a growing list of institutions and individuals that should be held accountable for civil and criminal liability upon a calamity.

Pictured above in yellow are the current “principal arterial highways,” and their intersection: WV 705 at bottom and US 119 (Mileground Road) at right.

In red are these arterial highways pictured after their $47 million expansions to 4 lanes (WV705) and 5 lanes (US 119) in 2 or 3 years.

In purple is Eastwood Elementary, scheduled to be built then opened in about a year.

In blue is the DOH right-of-way for its highway expansion.

In pink are the planned internal campus drives of Eastwood Elementary.

In orange is the location where Sheetz has schematically designed a gas station that it is eager to build by Eastwood Elementary.

The Eastwood Elementary school site borders and extends along WV 705 and across the entire intersection with US 119 (Mileground Road) and along the Sheetz gas station intended site. The right-of-way for the DOH highway expansion covers a substantial portion of the school site close to the front and main doors of the planned school.

These facts, and more, render the new school site a sweeping violation of West Virginia state student safety and new school site Rules as we have documented extensively. The recent and predictable delineation of the DOH arterial highways right-of-way makes the violation and the potentially lethal safety risk of young students ever more clear, and it makes yet another state agency liable and culpable.
Read the rest of this entry »

CRASH AND SMASH ON ROUTE 705 BY THE MILEGROUND

The crash during rush hours this morning backed up traffic nearly two miles across the entire length of the Mileground (US 119) and down Easton Hill, thus once again entrapping the Eastwood school site. It happens over and over and over at and around this dangerous intersection. Read the rest of this entry »

WHAT ELSE?

President Obama speaking today about the Penn State child sexual assault scandal and protecting children in general:

“And I think it’s a good time for the entire country to do some soul-searching—not just Penn State. …our No. 1 priority has to be protecting our kids. And every institution has to examine how they operate, and every individual has to take responsibility for making sure that our kids are protected.” … “you can’t just rely on bureaucracy and systems in these kinds of situations. People have to step forward, they have to be tapping into just their core decency.” … “all of us have to step up, we don’t leave it to somebody else to take responsibility.”

To bar the Eastwood Mileground site, the ball is now in the West Virginia Supreme Court. Read the rest of this entry »

THE FATE OF YOUNG CHILDREN HANGS IN THE BALANCE

It’s the job of the Supreme Court to be courageous to make proper decisions that go against the preferences of powerful agencies and officials.

While the local Monongalia County media and Morgantown media give constant coverage to the Penn State sexual assault scandal in their distant backyard they completely ignore the ongoing Eastwood Elementary new school siting scandal in their immediate front yard, the reckless and potentially lethal new school site impending at arterial highways banned by state Rule, a siting that could one day result in involuntary manslaughter charges against county and state education officials, given the death of a student in those safety hazards prohibited at new school sites by state Rule.

Post-calamity would be too late for child victims of the Eastwood school site, just like it is too late to prevent the damage done to the child victims in the Penn State sex assault scandal.

In both scandals, the officials have denied and tried to minimize the perception of the problem, they have rationalized and justified rule-breaking, wrongful behavior, and risk-taking with the lives of young children. In both cases, the legal position of the officials is dubious at best, and the moral positions are irresponsible, reckless, and wrong. And local and state media are silent, and therefore complicit.

Out of sight, out of mind, move along and isolate, pretend that it would be too disruptive to shift to a new, safe and lawful school site – that’s the implicit messages of the local and state media and certainly of the school officials – to deny and to minimize the stark danger of the hazardous and potentially lethal site that is the intended Eastwood Elementary school location at the intersection of two high traffic, congested, arterial highways, WV 705 and US 119.

“People think it’s crazy.” – WVU Professor of Law, Bob Bastress.

Mon Schools and WV School Building Authority officials think otherwise. Wrongfully and negligently.

And the vote by the WV School Building Authority in June to fund a new Kenna Elementary school in Jackson County in a prohibited industrial park goes equally ignored. Involuntary Manslaughter would be the charge upon calamity in these hazardous sites, and the price of the civil liability suits would reach into the tens of millions of dollars.

But the West Virginia media to its shame is deaf to this West Virginia scandal even as it trumpets the Penn State scandal in an ongoing spate of inexcusable hypocrisy. Read the rest of this entry »

THE SITE IS NOT WORTH A SINGLE DOLLAR NOR A SINGLE LIFE FOR A SCHOOL

Top sports writer Dan Wetzel and attorney Clay Travis discuss the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, including Penn State’s

“civil liability, and that of individuals such as [President] Spanier, [Head Coach] Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley and others.”

Attorney Travis

“estimates the total liability will be more than $100 million and that’s if Penn State can avoid any punitive measures, which could drive things higher. Paterno himself could pay out millions.”

Sports law professor Michael McCann analyzes the Penn State scandal liabilities further.

And United States Education Secretary Arne Duncan states the underlying imperative: “Schools and school officials have a legal and moral responsibility to protect children and young people from violence and abuse.”

Now compare to the Eastwood Mileground siting scandal and the West Virginia state Rule that mandates:

“For the safety of students, [any and every] new school site shall be located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as: a. … arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion b. Noise, toxic gas escapes from … odoriferous plants or industries … e. … bulk storage plants for flammable liquid, and property zoned as industrial f. Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment…”

The intended Eastwood Mileground site is an egregious mass violation of multiple site prohibiting provisions above. The site is a dangerous, potentially lethal, even predictably lethal mass of insoluble violations.

If the Eastwood Mileground school siting proceeds, and if a severe or deadly calamity to a student occurs in the prohibited features at and around the new school site, then punitive and civil liability damages should be imposed against the top Monongalia County School Officials and the top WV School Building Authority officials, along with multi-million dollar civil liability damages against the various educational agencies.

The unusually dangerous features at and around the Eastwood Mileground school site are prohibited by state Rule for a reason. One does not have to be a prophet to predict potential disaster or likely disaster on and around those deadly highways.

The officials and agencies involved do not have the right, moral or legal, to roll loaded dice with children’s lives.

A lot like in the Penn State child sex scandal there is a culture of looking the other way among the education officials and agencies in West Virginia, as regards new school siting. It’s dangerous. It’s potentially lethal. It’s wrong. And given an essentially predicatable calamity, it’s criminal.

The West Virginia Supreme Court must intervene decisively. Read the rest of this entry »

NEGLIGENT ADMINISTRATION MUST BE REPLACED

WVU and Penn State high administration officials share a scandalous inability to do the right thing when it comes to young children. Why is that? Why did WVU build a nursery school within scant feet of a polluted traffic intersection? Why did WVU sell land to Monongalia County Schools for forthcoming Eastwood Elementary at another polluted and traffic crash dangerous intersection? WVU Vice President of Administration and Finance Narvel Weese and WVU President Jim Clements should be called to account, along with the WVU Board of Governors, all of whom approved the sale, without public discussion.

Why did the director of the West Virginia School Building Authority (SBA) approve the Eastwood site in clear-cut violation of state Rule? Why did the Superintendent of Monongalia County Schools recommend the site? SBA Director Mark Manchin and Mon Schools Superintendent Frank Devono should be called to account, along with the county school board that unanimously voted for the site upon the Superintendent’s recommendation.

These individuals should be held up alongside the disgraced Penn State officials involved in the child sex abuse scandal currently being prosecuted by the Pennsylvania Attorney General.

They should be held to account like these Penn State officials who have been forced out of office – Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President of Administration and Finance Gary Schultz – and those who should be forced out of office, such as Penn State President Graham Spanier. Legendary Penn State Coach Joe Paterno should also step down.

Overstatement in comparison? Hardly. Maybe an understatement, because the West Virginia officials are the direct perpetrators in the reckless and irresponsible siting, whereas the top Penn State officials involved in the scandal acted indirectly in failing to report the child abusing actions of former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky.

What happens here in Morgantown if a student is killed or severely injured in a crash in the high traffic, congested, arterial highways should Eastwood Elementary be built and open in a year or so at that spot that is banned by state Rule? It could be any child riding to or from school with his or her mother through that accident-prone intersection and arterials. High traffic highways, congested highways, arterial highways are each banned from being located at any new school site in West Virginia. The Eastwood site violates all those specific, explicit safety provisions, and more. And all the officials involved know it, or have no excuse not to know.

A good personal injury lawyer could properly extract tens of millions of dollars in compensation from the negligent agencies, and hit the negligent administrators with criminal charges, upon a catastrophe with such predictable potential, very much like what we are currently seeing at Penn State.

What has been done thus far by any official to prevent and correct this situation “simply isn’t enough.” In fact, nothing of serious prohibitive consequence has been done thus far by any official.

In West Virginia “Involuntary Manslaughter involves the accidental causing of death of another person, although unintended, which death is the proximate result of negligence so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life.”

The difference between Pennsylvania and West Virginia? 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. The West Virginia Supreme Court is expected to rule on the lawsuit in the next couple of months. It should act like the Pennsylvania Attorney General. It should do the right thing. It should ban the negligent and potentially lethal Eastwood Elementary intersection site from ever being used as a public schoolgrounds.

The first-rate sports journalist Dan Wetzel says of the Penn State scandal that “The time for hiding behind statements and closed doors and parsed explanations from so-called leaders are over. This demands real investigation conducted by real adults…”

Just so for West Virginia school officials regarding the potentially lethal Eastwood Elementary school siting: It’s time for the real adults – hopefully those on the WV Supreme Court – to step forward and do the right thing, bar the Eastwood siting.

If not, one “accident” – traffic crash – in those school-site arterials puts this scandal directly “into the realm of criminal negligence.”

Read the rest of this entry »

ADMINISTRATION FAILS TO CREDIT THE WORKERS AND STUDENTS

The levy was approved by about 69 percent of the voters yesterday and will provide (reportedly) about 25 percent of Monongalia County Schools’ budget. As we explained earlier, Mon Schools should have asked for more funds, which are badly needed.

Superintendent Devono laughably claims that the vote for the levy funds shows

“that the community once again chose to support the school system”‘ [and] “affirms what the board has been able to accomplish…”

Since the School Board almost always rubber stamps Superintendent Devono’s management of the school system, he is giving the Board, himself, and the school “system” all the credit for the levy funds approval. The vote shows no such thing. The levy vote was sold to the public as a way to provide support for the teachers and other workers and students, and it is in fact the school workers and students who are the beneficiaries of the levy funds and who deserve the credit for the levy approval.

Superintendent Devono doesn’t mention them, no surprise. He ignores the role of the teachers and service workers and students in the vote and takes all the credit for himself and the Board and their “system.”

In reality, the levy vote shows the support of the public for the workers and students despite the poor leadership of the Board and the Superintendent in many instances. The public generously votes for the levy despite the presence of top school officials who don’t even know how, why, or when to give credit where credit is due.

One is forced to hold one’s nose, given this particular School Board and Superintendent and the often inept way in which they use the rest of the budget and their responsibilities, to vote for the funds that the workers and children need – workers and students who go unmentioned by the Superintendent as he sops up credit about the results of the vote for the Board and for the “system” and by implication for himself, in a statement of pathetic comedy. It’s a kind of lie, a disturbingly common misdirection and deceit, or it’s a display of profound professional  incompetence.

The funds were overwhelmingly approved for the workers and students, and once again the Board and Superintendent failed to ask for enough funds for the workers and students, failed to ask for all the funds available, as these “leaders” continue to fail to do their jobs well.

Dominion Post reports in the same article, quoted above, that the levy mainly funds teachers and service workers and students, and this is where credit should be attributed for the results of the levy vote. Apparently it will take a different Superintendent and Board to readily and aptly give credit where credit is due. Board President Barbara Parsons also failed to attribute proper credit for the vote:

“We’re very pleased. We weren’t absolutely certain that we would win,” but the voters supported it. She thanked the levy committee for doing such a good job. It enables the school system to offer the necessities and some other important extras that some other systems can’t provide.

Notice how the teachers, the service workers, and the students don’t seem to exist to the Superintendent and Board President?

Below, the Dominion Post reports on who the voters actually approved the levy for, the workers and students, who are not otherwise  mentioned in the article, except for a token “serve the students” from the Superintendent, as the workers – teachers, bus drivers, and others – are completely blanked out. Read the rest of this entry »

NEGLECT UPON NEGLECT FOR THE AYP TEST PROFICIENT SCHOOL

If your children attend most any of the large elementary schools in Monongalia County, including Mountainview Elementary, one of the largest elementary schools in the entire state, you can apparently by law send them to Woodburn Elementary, because that little elementary school passed the AYP test whereas most all of the large elementary schools did not.

But think again about doing so, because Mon Schools seems to have given up on Woodburn Elementary:

The lawn hasn’t been cut in so long, they could now practically mow, rake, and bale it for hay.

And the children sit and wait for the buses forever, which seem to come later and later. Drive past the school an hour after it has “let out” for the day, and you may well see the students still there, waiting for a bus ride home. The students wait, and wait, and wait. And so do the teachers.

[UPDATE: AS IT HAPPENED, ON THIS DAY A BUS OF STUDENTS WAS NOT PICKED UP AT WOODBURN UNTIL AN HOUR AND A HALF AFTER SCHOOL “LET OUT.” SCHOOL AT WOODBURN LETS OUT AT 3:35. STUDENTS WERE NOT PICKED UP THIS DAY UNTIL AFTER 5:00.]

Is this what an AYP passing school deserves? Neglect upon neglect?

Way to go Mon Schools. Make sure you don’t get too much levy money, because then you might actually have to use it for the good.

And then there is the City of Morgantown.

Last year the City was asked by a parent to put a stop sign on the city road that Ts another city road where it cuts right through the Woodburn school campus. No luck.

A stop sign on a city road intersection by a city school? What sense would that make? Read the rest of this entry »

LOW STANDARDS NOTHING NEW FOR MONONGALIA COUNTY SCHOOLS

The Dominion Post reports today that if Mon Schools would get too much money from an approved levy due to raised property appraisals, then Mon Schools will essentially give some of the money back, not collect it. Plus, Mon Schools is already asking for only 75 percent of the levy amount that it could ask for, by state law.

And then Mon Schools is going to turn around and whine and complain that it cannot hire more badly needed bus drivers because it has no funds.

Note how the Dominion Post dropped that issue like a hot potato as soon as the levy vote came up.

The service workers association AND the teachers association should be screaming for a full levy.

Or are the Associations content to let Mon Schools administration and board boss the workers like they are sharecroppers and treat the students like they are less than even that.

As the Dominion Post noted, much of the levy money would stay local.

Local money stimulates the local economy. It’s good for the whole area, the whole county.

But Mon Schools seems to want to starve the local economy and underfund its employees and students and their activities.

Shame on Mon Schools for not trying to raise more badly needed money. Mon Schools “leadership” is so backwards it hurts. It hurts everyone.

Why not aim high, Mon Schools? For a change. Badly needed.

The rest of the tragi-comedy in the paper today: Mon Schools “hopes” to “refurbish” all the elementary school playgrounds. Now, I wonder why Mon Schools would think to do that or to at least mention it (and laughably not promise to do so but only to “hope”)? Hmm, maybe because anyone with elementary schoolchildren knows the upper administrators have shafted those schoolchildren, regarding Eastwood, Skyview, Mylan Park, and the massive Mountainview and North schools. Read the rest of this entry »

FOUR-CAR COLLISION PORTENDS THE FUTURE AT EASTWOOD ELEMENTARY

The wrecks in the area are a constant. Mon Schools is willing to roll loaded dice with your children by building the new Eastwood Elementary on the Mileground in clear violation of state safety mandates that prohibit new schools being located in entrapping, or high traffic, or congested, or arterial highway zones. And that is exactly, as everyone knows, what the state route 705 “bypass” and the Mileground road (US 119) happen to be, along with their intersection. The 705/119 Eastwood location meets all of these school-banning criteria, and more.

The wreck yesterday caused motorists to be stuck in traffic for two and half hours and longer. Four cars smashed. Three people to the hospital. The arterial highway, route 705, closed.

But the negligent officials at Mon Schools persist in site prep to build a school there. The state should intervene and remove these officials from office, but the state has approved the site and continues to defend in court the site from an ongoing lawsuit.

Are they insane? Do they not care about the well-being of children, and their parents, and the communities? Is this what it has come to in West Virginia? Is this where we build schools now, in unstable commercial high traffic smash and crash polluted death zones? Why does it not seem to matter that these sites are explicitly banned by state mandates?

The local personal injury lawyers should start building their files, now, in anticipation of leveling massive civil and even criminal lawsuits at Mon Schools and the state education agencies, in anticipation of future calamities that fall upon the young schoolchildren, ages 3 to 11.

No wonder most everyone you talk to who happens to mention Eastwood Elementary calls it stupid, or lousy, or wrong, or completely nuts:

Read the rest of this entry »

NO B & O TAX DOLLARS TO THE MILEGROUND

THE EASTWOOD MILEGROUND SITE REARS ITS GROTESQUE HEAD AT MORGANTOWN CITY COUNCIL

The Monongalia County School Board President, Barbara Parsons, and Superintendent Frank Devono, and City Manager Terrence Moore offered nothing but bad ideas at the Morgantown City Council meeting last evening in regard to what should be done with the several hundred thousand dollars in B & O taxes that the city will collect from the contractors who would build Eastwood Elementary on the Mileground.

The idea of the city investing so much as a single dollar of the B & O taxes at or near the Mileground site is outrageous, but a full investment there is apparently what President Parsons and Superintendent Devono want. And possibly City Manager Terrence Moore too. Mon Schools and its negligent Mileground project should get nothing. It deserves nothing. Mon Schools should pay the full cost of its stupid and negligent fiasco that is Eastwood on the Mileground.

Furthermore, the city should not open itself up to civil and criminal liability lawsuits by contributing a dime that would facilitate school operations at that dangerous and unhealthy Mileground site. The city should continue to oppose such a site and school wholesale.

President Parsons made some ludicrous suggestions about the city using the B & O taxes it would collect from construction there to pay for “bike racks” for the school and to pay for “trees” evidently on school land – where else? Superintendent Devono suggested the city could pay for “trails behind the school,” thus on school land, or that the city could pay for “sewer upgrades” there. Mon Schools should pay for its own shit, and there is plenty of it, as it wanders utterly lost on its trails through the woods. Additionally, both Parsons and Devono suggested apparently that the city could pay for an access road from Eastwood to the Mileground, with Devono repeatedly referring to the private Tramore Lane in the vicinity as “Traverse Lane” or somesuch. That would essentially be a school drive. The city is not responsible for Tramore Lane, nor does that private lane need improvement for anything but school bus use, nor is that private lane even within the city limits. Mon Schools should pay for any improvements and use of that private lane that it needs, not the city. And Mon Schools should pay for its trees, and trails, and bike racks. And last rites should be administered in advance to any bike riders in the area.

Breaking from the ludicrous for a moment was Councilwoman Jenny Selin suggesting that some of the B & O taxes could be used by the city to increase safety on the roads around the school. This idea is well intentioned but foolish twice-over. First, the city apparently maintains no roads around the would-be school. The Eastwood Mileground site is surrounded by two arterial highways: WV 705 and US 119. These are apparently state-maintained roads. And nearby Tramore Lane is private. Second, the city inserting itself into the potentially lethal mess of attempting to make these inherently dangerous roads safe is not only not clearly within its jurisdiction but could open up the city to massive lawsuits in the event a student would be seriously injured or killed in the teeth of any city involvement on these state and federal highways. Mon Schools should bear full cost and responsibility for its own negligence in siting a school in that hazardous location over the formal and written objections of the Morgantown City Council and the broad public. Any assistance in this regard should come from the state, not the city. After all, state agencies collaborated in this horrible siting with Monongalia County Schools and the state is funding part of Eastwood construction with $8.6 million in state funds. Further, the Eastwood Mileground school site is only nominally within city limits and not much effectively or functionally so. To the contrary.

Councilman Bill Byrne had the most sensible idea, apparently suggesting that the city use the B & O taxes to help purchase the to-be abandoned Woodburn schoolgrounds from Mon Schools for public use and the public good.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Devono indicated that Mon Schools would like to acquire a strip of the current Armory grounds (that the city controls) closest to the Eastwood Mileground site in a seeming desperate attempt to provide a tiny buffer zone from whatever entity the city must sell the Armory grounds to, apparently the inherently toxic Sheetz gas station. (The planned school building would extend nearly into the current armory site and future potential gas station site.) But the City, in order to obtain the 4 million dollars it needs from those 5 armory acres to build the access road to the new light industrial park and to build the industrial park itself, and to relocate the armory there in the forthcoming industrial park between the airport and I-68, needs first and foremost to get its 4 million dollars in cash, and seemingly can hardly afford to merely swap much if any land at the armory to Mon Schools for, say, land of the to-be abandoned Woodburn schoolgrounds there well within the city (and within good walking distance of all of downtown Morgantown, Whitmore Park, Marilla Park, and the Deckers Creek and Monongahela River rail trails. It would be great for the city to, in cooperation with BoParc, build a much more direct trail connecting Woodburn schoolgrounds to Marilla Park, a simple switchback trail directly down the hillside through the otherwise unused section of Whitmore park.)

The upshot is that the cash-starved city of Morgantown badly needs the armory cash and the B & O cash – for creating the industrial park, and for purchasing, fixing, maintaining, and revitalizing the Woodburn schoolgrounds. The city should merely scoff at Mon Schools’ outrageous attempts to persuade the city to spend city money at or along the negligent Eastwood Mileground site.

Let’s say it three times over: The city should do the right thing and not spend a dime on or around the Eastwood Mileground site. The city should use all the B & O taxes to purchase as much of the Woodburn schoolgrounds as possible. The city should invest nothing around the Eastwood Mileground site. Where would the city plausibly, let alone responsibly, invest at the Mileground site anyway? The city apparently maintains none of the roads around the Eastwood Mileground site, and no public sidewalks nor other facilities, aside from the 5 acres of the armory which it needs to sell for 4 million dollars to recoup money it has already committed.

Mon Schools made its horrible bed and will have to cough up its own funds and cajole the state to do what it can to not get any of its charges, its students, killed. The city cannot effectively help in that regard, nor should it.

Unfortunately, the City Manager, Terrence Moore, was completely irresponsible in repeatedly advocating, cryptically, that Mon Schools and the City of Morgantown come to an agreement “in perpetuity” that the city will spend B & O funds in relation to school construction projects that generate such funds for the city. City Manager Moore seems so utterly determined to have B & O funds spent at the Eastwood Mileground site or otherwise for the school district directly that he repeatedly stressed the – entirely fictitious – need to create an agreement forever, “in perpetuity,” for the city to evidently commit in writing, in advance, for always, to invest B & O funds either in the school district itself, or at and adjacent to school construction projects, or otherwise in favorable relation to the school district. Such an agreement would be entirely irresponsible, because it just so happens that the school district – a county agency – does not always act favorably or constructively in relation to the city with its projects that create these B & O revenues. The Eastwood Mileground siting is a stark example of this. In fact the school district directly opposed and trampled on the wishes of Morgantown City Council in relation to the Eastwood Mileground siting and the fate of Woodburn Elementary.

City Manager Moore wasn’t around at the time, so if he doesn’t know the history, someone should bring him up to speed fast. Read the rest of this entry »

STEALING STUDENTS’ HEALTH, SAFETY, AND EDUCATION IN MONONGALIA AND JACKSON COUNTIES

If the SBA is allowed to site Eastwood Elementary at the intersection of WV 705 and US 119 (aka Mileground Road), then precedent will have been set for new schools in West Virginia to be sited anywhere at all, no matter how hazardous, no matter how unlawful, no matter how health damaging and potentially lethal.

See the New York Times article below. Various courts are doing their job restoring funding to students. The courts in West Virginia should do their job too and protect the young students in Jackson County and Monongalia County from treacherous new school sites. (UPDATE: Also, see failure at Milton Middle.) Read the rest of this entry »

THE EMPEROR AND THE OFFICIAL LINE

The hypocrisy of Mon Schools superintendent Frank Devono is impressive. The Dominion Post reports today that

“Only six of Monongalia County’s public schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last school year [on the WESTEST]. But the top administrator said that is not a reflection of the education those schools are providing…. [Superintendent Frank Devono] said No Child Left Behind, the federal program that mandates the testing criteria, is outdated and needs to be revised. ‘This is not a true measure of the success our schools experience,’ he said. ‘This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.’

Superintendent Devono’s dismissive comments about the tests come in light of Mon Schools’ failing 2010-2011 test scores. Contrast this with what Superintendent Devono said about these tests a mere two years prior to 2010, to begin the 2008-2009 school year, in his report “CSOs, WESTEST 2 and Crossing the Digital Divide“:

“The results of cumulative assessments such as the WESTEST 2 and NAEP indicate more than student achievement of CSO’s [WV Content Standards and Objectives]. They’re also yardsticks measuring our ability to reach our students – sometimes across that digital divide – through rigorous instruction delivered with relevancy to their ‘real world’.”

No wonder that Superintendent Devono would want to play down last year’s failure of 12 of the district’s 18 schools to meet the AYP standards, a 67 percent rate, significantly worse than the state’s 52 percent rate of school test failure. Even more discreditable, Mon Schools’ Superintendent and the clueless school board, over strong popular will, decided to permanently get rid of two small schools that happen to be two of the six schools that did meet the AYP standards: Woodburn and Easton Elementaries. According to the Dominion Post:

“Twelve of Monongalia County’s 18 public schools (66.7 percent) failed to meet AYP during the 2010-’11 school year, compared to just four (22.2 percent) in the 2009-’10 school year, the state DOE said.

“The schools that did not meet AYP are Brookhaven Elementary, Ridgedale Elementary, North Elementary, Mountainview Elementary, Mason-Dixon Elementary, Mylan Park Elementary, Mountaineer Middle, Westwood Middle, South Middle, Clay-Battelle High, Morgantown High and University High. Those that did meet AYP are Easton Elementary, Suncrest Primary, Woodburn Elementary, Cheat Lake Elementary, Skyview Elementary, and Suncrest Middle.

“Statewide, 363 of 692 schools (52.46 percent) failed to meet AYP in the m recent school year, compared to 128 of 694 schools (18.44 percent) in the prior year.”

And so it is that, basically, according to Superintendent Devono, the tests mattered in the past but not anymore, not given these latest results, which show exactly what we reviewed here yesterday: the value of small neighborhood schools. Mon Schools’ three smallest elementaries account for half of all the schools in the district that met AYP standards: Suncrest, Easton, and Woodburn, the latter two to be closed permanently and consolidated into Eastwood elementary on the Mileground next year – an unpopular, anti-educational, and unsafe move. Meanwhile, little Suncrest Elementary has repeatedly been threatened with closure. It’s as if Mon Schools delights in being obstinately anti-educational.

Let’s take a closer look at the data, which is quite revealing. Of the schools that passed the AYP tests:

1) three are the smallest schools in the district (Woodburn, Easton, Suncrest);

2) two of these small schools have the most impoverished students (Woodburn & Easton); these two schools did well presumably in significant part because they are small, since low-income correlates inversely with academic success, nationwide; and

3) the schools with the most affluent students (Cheat Lake Elementary, Suncrest Elementary & Suncrest Middle) did well presumably in significant part because wealth correlates with academic success, nationwide.

Finally, Skyview Elementary also met standards and would appear to be the sole outlier to schools having a small student body or relatively affluent students as factors that account for academic achievement.

This sample size is of course not large enough to have any scientific meaning, but it is suggestive and in line with the best knowledge of careful professional research.

But according to the Superintendent who has been pushing for and building big consolidated schools over the past half dozen years:  these tests that he lauded a few short years ago are “not a true measure of the success our schools experience.” They can’t be, otherwise his policies and views would be shown to be pathetically and outrageously wrong. “This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.” Whether or not the tests have as much value as they ostensibly do is not the point. The point is the hypocrisy toward the tests by the top administrator of Mon Schools, the existence of which calls into serious question once again both his competence and any minimal level of professionalism.

And the school board not only turns a blind eye, it echoes the Superintendent, applauds him, and pays him top dollar with big multi-year raises. One incompetent and unprofessional hand feeds the other. It’s as if the Superintendent gets paid to defy and oppose with the maximum amount of manipulation the public for which he is supposed to work.

Such is the typical sorry state of officialdom where no organized public exists to enact the popular will.

Only three years ago: “The results of cumulative assessments such as the WESTEST 2 and NAEP indicate more than student achievement of CSO’s. They’re also yardsticks measuring our ability to reach our students – sometimes across that digital divide – through rigorous instruction delivered with relevancy to their ‘real world’.”

Today:  “This is not a true measure of the success our schools experience… This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.”

So no problem then to get rid of the proficient small schools, such as Woodburn and Easton. And to repeatedly threaten Suncrest.

The Emperor wears no clothes. Yet again. Read the rest of this entry »

TO HELL WITH EXCELLENCE; LET’S BUILD A CONCENTRATION CAMP ON THE MILEGROUND

They don’t care.

Either that or they are monstrously incompetent.

When deciding to close and consolidate Woodburn Elementary and Easton Elementary into the polluted and dangerously sited consolidated Eastwood Elementary (on the smash-and-crash racetrack that is the Mileground road in Morgantown), Superintendent Frank Devono and the Monongalia County school board ignored studies showing that small neighborhood schools are of exceptional educational benefit to students of low income, who make up very many of the children of the affected schools. Board President, at the time and current board member, Nancy Walker even doubted that the mass of research was accurate. These school officials seemed wholly unconcerned and entirely proud of their ignorance and anti-educational action. What wonderful qualities to have in ostensible leaders of education.

UPDATE: And now is the news that the Dominion Post reports about the results of testing in the county next door to Monongalia: “Only Preston County’s three smallest schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last year.” And virtually the same results held in Monongalia County.

Monongalia County and neighboring Preston County combined have 30 public schools. In those two counties combined last year, the 6 smallest public schools passed the AYP tests. Only two other schools passed, which means that 22 of the larger schools failed. To recap: the 6 smallest schools passed, 22 of the larger schools failed, 2 other schools passed. Next year, Mon Schools intends to close two of its smallest passing schools to combine them into a larger school (Eastwood), against the public will and best knowledge. It’s anti-educational, just as we have been saying for years now. And it’s otherwise stupid, lousy, and dangerously wrong.

For a long long time we have pointed out that:

an overwhelming body of research shows that small neighborhood schools offer superior education and experience. Small neighborhood schools:

improve student learning…reduce the achievement gap between poor and affluent students and minority students and whites…cultivate better student attitudes…cultivate better teacher attitudes…reduce discipline problems, truancy, and drop-out rates…better engage parents in their children’s learning and foster closer parent-teacher relationships…encourage walking to school and this improves children’s health and active engagement in learning… (Save Our Neighborhood Schools: Lawrence, Kansas)

In 2009, University of Virginia researchers noted, in accord with the large body of research, “large schools no longer are regarded as the panacea for America’s educational challenges. Many of the problems of public education, from low student achievement to high dropout rates, are being traced to large schools….”

In defiance of best knowledge and practice, the Monongalia County School District has pursued consolidation, and by stealth. No notice about possible school closing went home to parents through their schoolchildren until long after the SBA consolidated school grant had already been awarded. Many parents remained unsure of what was going on. While everyone agrees that new schools at good locations are necessary for both Easton and Woodburn elementaries, the overwhelming majority of those who publicly expressed opinion have been opposed to the consolidation.

And now the pathetic tragi-comedy that is the school board and administration of Monongalia County Schools comes full circle for a family with a child at Mountainview Elementary, “So My Daughter Can Leave Mountainview Elementary To Go Where?“:

This weekend, my family received a letter. The letter told us that Mountainview Elementary [one of the largest elementary schools in the state] was considered a failing school. This conclusion was reached as a result of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB is a stupid piece of legislation that replaces learning to think with learning to regurgitate rehearsed answers that will satisfy standardized tests. Still, Mountainview is failing to achieve even that.

Part of NCLB allows us to send our daughter somewhere else if openings are available, and in this case, we were offered two schools that are succeeding in preparing students for standardized tests: Easton Elementary and Woodburn Elementary. At this point, you’re probably saying that those two schools sound familiar to you, and they should: our school board voted to close both as soon as possible. So, to recap:

-My daughter’s consolidated elementary school apparently sucks.
-Our options for other, more successful schools that she could attend and which are better at satisfying national education policy are going to be closed to create more consolidated schools that are precisely like Mountainview Elementary.

Which brings us back to the non-controversy that was the closure of Easton Elementary and Woodburn Elementary. Sure, parents in both neighborhoods stood opposed to such a decision, but that didn’t stop our current Board of Education from voting [unanimously] to close both schools, despite the apparent fact that both are doing a better job than their larger, consolidated counterparts. That didn’t stop them because the MCBoE doesn’t care about communities in our around Morgantown, they don’t care about children, and they certainly don’t care about education.

It’s long since time for the entire school board and the top administration at Monongalia County Schools to be entirely replaced, for many reasons, including the fact that best educational knowledge continues to fall on their deaf ears. Read the rest of this entry »

MAY 2012 – TWO SEATS UP FOR ELECTION

Including one seat in the Western district and one seat in the Eastern district.

No seats are up for election in the Central district, unfortunately, which includes Woodburn and South Park.

Suncrest should field a good candidate to vie for the seat in the Eastern district.

And in the Western district?

The school board should be controlled by the neighborhoods and communities in general. Currently the board is controlled by the “Town Fathers” or their think-alikes. Sad to say. The Town Fathers and think-alikes treat the public schools like schools for the poor, undeserving of serious money, and unwelcoming of serious public involvement. The board and administration often treat the workers, and that includes teachers, like serfs or like children to be herded. The board and the administration have a concentration camp mentality toward the schools. They completely lack a neighborhood and community mentality. It shows: in the buildings, the buses, the facilities, the activities, the campuses, the funding, the public perception, the community and social relations, the professional relations. It shows badly.

The current school board and administration have proved incapable of producing quality websites for the school district and schools, one of the very main public faces and interfaces in this day and age.

And they have proved incapable of even a simple yet profound measure of public outreach and information: providing online podcasts of the board meetings. They are incompetent. Or worse.

Of course, well known to visitors of this site is the notorious situation of the heinous Eastwood Elementary siting and expense, a calamity in the making. And there is the recent UHS monstrosity, and the fairly recent siting of Skyview Elementary above an industrial park, and consequently now Marcellus Shale gas wells, which produce high amounts of air pollution. There exists state policy that prohibits these abominations, and plenty of research that shows the all-around hideousness to health, safety, and education. But the board and administration have shown time and again that THEY DON’T CARE. If they did care, these abominations would not exist. Read the rest of this entry »

WHY COURT DISASTER, MON SCHOOLS? WHY?

Another vehicle smash-up on the Mileground today by the impending Eastwood Elementary site. How many collisions will it take before Mon Schools is forced to its senses?

Mon Schools doesn’t know what it has gotten itself into in shoving a school into that disaster zone.

Mon Schools should start planning and calculating for criminal liability, prison terms for school officials, and massive civil liability expenses – taxpayer money by the millions – due to any students that may be injured, seriously injured, or killed in that danger zone.

Personal injury lawyers would drop like a bomb in court the state policy that bans new schools not “located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as…arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion…[and/or] situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment” among other banned hazards that Eastwood students would be exposed to on the Mileground. Read the rest of this entry »

700 Block McKinley Avenue (behind Monongalia Avenue)

This Saturday, August 27, 4:30-7:30 p.m.

Bring a dish to share and a chair to sit in.

BoParc Bounce house will be there until 7 p.m.  Games and other fun activities!

NO WAY AROUND IT – NEED TO RAISE THE PAY, IMPROVE CONDITIONS

It’s a failure of funding and workplace conditions. Note to Mon Schools, address them both and you’ll get your drivers.

Driving young children to school is an important job, it’s extremely valuable, a vital service, and here are the kickers: it’s difficult and poorly paid.

The job pays like crap. That’s the main problem. The conditions are trying and the hours are awkward, split up as they are.

It’s a tricky job. These aren’t half-empty Mountain Line buses carrying self-sufficient adults and navigating main roads. School buses in Monongalia County are loaded with needy children navigating narrow and steep twisting back roads. Not easy. Hugely important.

So Mon Schools not only should but ever more obviously needs to pay the drivers well and needs to listen to them and act on their needs, and ought to stop making useless excuses for why these difficult positions can’t get staffed.

The answer is to pass big-time levies (a property tax), which Mon Schools seems not only reluctant but loathe to do.

Now why would that be?

Because Mon Schools treats parents and the public so piss-poor, so often, that naturally a lot of support may not exist for an increased tax on property. But wait, a huge number of students and their families in the public schools are impoverished and don’t own much if any property that would be taxed. And the vast majority of the other students and their families are hardly huge property owning moguls.

It just so happens that the big shots who own much of the county would rather not pay much at all for the public schools, but instead much more greatly prefer to pump their money into sports facilities (which they can get their names on) rather than adequately fund the schools, classrooms, and busing. Thanks.

Amazingly enough public support matters if the public schools are to function well. That is why it is important that the board and the Superintendent stop acting so asinine and irresponsibly in one way after another. Because it severely impacts their ability to even minimally get the job done.

Sure the state is to blame too. It urinates and defecates on the public seemingly at will. And it fails to tax big coal and gas and other industries enough (a scandal of extreme proportion), and it sets the regular school tax that Mon Schools must abide by…but the state does not control the levy rate. Nor can the state be held responsible for the local spitting on the public that Mon Schools is renowned for.

Why does Mon Schools continue to refuse to broadcast its school board meetings on the internet? Afraid of what the public will see?

Mon Schools has a busing problem, for sure, and many other problems. And many of those problems are not only the responsibility but also the fault of the whiny state-blaming school board, the superintendent, and other administration.

Read the rest of this entry »

PRAISE FOR $6 MILLION FOOTBALL EXPENSE PLUS OUTRAGE AT $.8 MILLION FOOD EXPENSE IS BS

Monongalia County Schools has left uncollected $809 thousand in payments for food (lunch and breakfast) from 2005-2010.

Maybe if the schools improved the quality of the food and the conditions in the schools people would actually be willing to pay on time. Or maybe not, and rightly so. It’s appalling that students, who are more-or-less forced to attend school everyday, and who are then served minimal quality food, are forced to pay for it – payment on top of school taxes, amazingly enough.

At minimum, the schools should pay for the students’ food, and the food should be paid for through taxes, unless the schools dramatically improve the quality of the food, also the lunchrooms…. Probably even then the schools should pay. The US is rich (contrary to the official lies) and the rich are getting richer (as the impoverished die and die early). The children should at least get good and free food during their time in the public schools!

The schools provide the voluntary athletes a $6 million football field, but will not pay for the compulsory schooled students’ meals during school. It makes no sense.

The media praise and any other praise for the football field payment and the outrage at the food expense is completely backwards. One is celebrated, the other is decried. It’s bullshit. All children need to eat, and eat well. None need to play football, let alone get banged up. The dollars should go the other way… Read the rest of this entry »

LISTENS TO THE PUBLIC, TO THE PARENTS, TO REASON, AND ACTS ACCORDINGLY

Good for Superintendent Larry Parsons for doing the right thing upon public protest in Preston County. He changed course, as he very well should have. Everyone wins.

But not in Monongalia County with the Eastwood Elementary siting disaster. With the Eastwood Elementary siting on the polluted, dangerous, congested Mileground, everyone loses.

Everyone loses because Monongalia County Superintendent Frank Devono (and the Board) failed and refused to listen to the public, to the parents, to the voices of reason. In Monongalia County the Superintendent failed and refused to act accordingly. Unlike in Preston County, we all lose, the child students not least.

As Superintendent Parsons said recently, “A wise man changes his ways; a fool never does.” Read the rest of this entry »

NO THANKS, NO MONEY FOR US, PLEASE – WE’RE ALL SET HERE IN WEST VIRGINIA

We’ve no use for additional federal funding, because we have no desire for better roads, wider roads, better public transportation, more public transportation, better schools, more schools, better teacher pay, more teachers, better child care, more child care, better health centers, more health centers, better health coverage, more health coverage. We’ve no use for better wages, more jobs, better jobs, better housing, better parks, better public services, and more of all. We’ve no use for cleaner air and water. What the hell do bankers and corporate moguls take us for – civilized? We’ve got no use for money here in the mountaintop-removed plateau state. Who does? So, please, no stimulus, no aid for West Virginia or for any other state, but especially not for West Virginia. After all, we may not be number one in everything, but we do come close most ways, that is if you take the barrel and flip it bottom-side up:

West Virginia’s Health Ranking and Well-Being and Quality of Life Indicators out of 50 States:

• 28 – lack of health insurance
• 32 – infant mortality*
• 33 – primary care physicians
• 40 – preterm birth
• 41 – overall poverty
• 41 – child poverty
• 43 – starting teacher salary
• 43 – overall health ranking
• 43 – immunization coverage
• 43 – on job deaths
• 44 – per capita personal income
• 45 – air pollution
• 45 – low birth weight
• 45 – obesity
• 46 – cardiovascular deaths
• 46 – poor mental health days
• 46 – median household income
• 47 – stroke
• 47 – premature death
• 47 – child care salaries
• 47 – all health and well-being outcomes
• 48 – average teacher salary
• 48 – broadband internet availability
• 48 – recent dental visit
• 48 – daily vegetables and fruits
• 48 – overweight or obese children
• 49 – cancer deaths
• 49 – poor physical health days
• 50 – smoking
• 50 – physical activity
• 50 – high blood pressure
• 50 – diabetes
• 50 – heart attacks
• 50 – cardiac heart disease
• 50 – preventable hospitalizations
• 50 – health status
• 50 – foreign-born residents
• 50 – language other than English at home
• 50 – residents with bachelor’s degree
• 50 – disadvantaged students’ education quality
• 50 – health insurance coverage for women
• 50 – proportion of high school graduates
• 50 – median income
• 50 – emotional health
• 50 – overall well-being

* Given that the US ranks 31st among all countries in maternal and child health, and dead last among industrialized nations, the West Virginia rank of 32 out of 50 US states is that much more serious. The US has low or last place rankings in many of these other categories also. In other words, on average, the people in many countries have significantly better health, well-being, and quality of life than do people in West Virginia (and the US), and they somehow have these better conditions in countries with far less wealth, and far fewer natural resources and other advantages. There is no mystery about the logistics of why this is so. They have more equitable societies: they spread the wealth more evenly.

In these vital measures of life, West Virginia suffers badly by comparison, at home and abroad, despite the fact that West Virginia’s economy (Gross Domestic Product) if considered as a country would be nearly the 60th largest economy. Given that West Virginia has a very small population compared to the size of its economy, where does all the money go? It’s common knowledge: many of the poorest most distressed people in West Virginia live in the counties with the greatest coal production. That’s why the coal companies broadcast their propaganda day and night, to try to cover for the fact that they are robbing the people of their wealth and their lives. Of course it’s not just the companies that mine coal that plunder and pillage. A similar situation exists across the US but the conquest of health and the looting of wealth is more extreme in West Virginia.

West Virginia and much of Appalachia is the epicenter of poor white America. The Four Corners region (intersection of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona is the epicenter of poor red (Native) America. The swatch of deep South from the lower Mississippi through several states to the east is the epicenter of poor black America. And the South Texas/Mexico border is the epicenter of poor brown America. These four big regions all have about the same income, health, and well-being indicators: rock bottom. The white, the red, the black, and the brown. Quite a collage, a quilt of Les Misérables: time to crack open again Victor Hugo’s unparalleled classic novel, especially when one considers the unmatched wealth disparity and prison population and expense on militarism of the USA. The poverty and distress of the four most impoverished regions in the US are matched only in the numerous urban pockets and swaths of hard times around the country where all four colors hole up unto themselves or ever more frequently mix and match, which is one positive at least. Hey, we can all get along, dollar-fleeced and trodden over together!

Charleston Gazette: “West Virginia ranks last in the nation for the well-being of its residents, and near the bottom in education, health and income, according to a new report from the American Human Development Project.” Read the rest of this entry »

WHITHER NORTH ELEMENTARY? AND MON SCHOOLS?

The Daily Mail reports today that the state is considering selling the WVNET property in Morgantown, possibly to next-door Mylan Pharmaceuticals, possibly for $10.5 million.

Which causes one to wonder: if the state can get $10.5 million from Mylan for WVNET’s small site and small building, what might Mon Schools get for North Elementary’s large campus and large building, which also sits immediately next-door to Mylan, directly behind WVNET, uphill from route 705?

The North Elementary building is big and relatively modern, and the North Elementary campus consists of about 13 acres, much larger than WVNET. In other words, if WVNET would get $10.5 million for its modest facility and grounds, why wouldn’t Mon Schools get tens of millions from the pharmaceutical giant for its much larger facility and grounds?

And why wouldn’t Mon Schools want to sell and move the school and campus? After all, what is a pharmaceutical plant? It’s a chemical factory.

Proximity to industrial facilities is not exactly child friendly. And axing WVNET is not job and people friendly.

What on Earth are young children doing going to school directly beside the many vents of a massive chemical factory? Has anyone ever tested the air between the drug factory and the elementary school? Have the school campus air and grounds been tested, and if not, why not?

North Elementary is dangerously close to the heavily-traveled and congested route 705. It’s not nearly as close to the highway as Eastwood Elementary on the Mileground is planned to be, but it’s too close nevertheless for the sake of health and safety. Plus the school and campus are immediately adjacent, practically on top of the the chemical factory that is Mylan Pharmaceuticals. In fact the school has a lovely, close-up view of many of the behemoth factory’s vents and a parking lot, which should make every parent’s stomach queasy.

The school should never have been built there in the first place (1978) and should have been long since relocated, away from the chemical plant and the dangerous road. Also, there is only one way in and one way out of North, risking entrapment, in addition to the lousy bottleneck and congestion.

What might Mylan develop on the WVNET site in front of and partly surrounding North Elementary? Mylan Pharmaceuticals is a transnational, transcontinental industry that answers to no local board of directors.

• Mylan’s revenue in 2010 was $5.4 billion.
• Mylan’s net income in 2010 was $345 million.
• Mylan’s pay package to its CEO in 2010 was $23 million.

Now is the time, long since, for Mon Schools to move toward its own deal with Mylan, to negotiate a sale of North Elementary School and campus. Such a sale should more than pay for not only the relocation of the school but for a major improvement of a new school or, much better, two new schools. Mylan needs to be made to feel its responsibility to the local schoolchildren. It’s not as if Mylan would get little in such a deal – very far from it. The smart heads as Mylan could think how to make out well off such a deal with Mon Schools, even as they see that Mon Schools gets all the funds it needs and everything the schoolchildren deserve for the property. Now is the time, now more than ever.

Mon Schools, what are you waiting for? Read the rest of this entry »

THE USUAL SUSPECTS VERSUS THE HEALTH OF THE PUBLIC

WVU’s Board of Governors hired Mike Garrison to be President of WVU, then never asked him to resign during the WVU/Heather Bresch eMBA scandal. Now he is working as attorney for Enrout Properties, the owners of the Morgantown Industrial Park, suing the City of Morgantown over the Marcellus Shale gas wells located in the Industrial Park near the city’s water intake.

Via The Record – “New Plaintiff Added in Morgantown Drilling Ban Suit“:

Enrout Properties claims the city’s ordinance is arbitrary and capricious in that it attempts to extend the city’s jurisdiction over land use beyond its municipal corporate limits. The plaintiffs are seeking for the court to declare the Morgantown ordinance to be in violation of the Constitutions of both West Virginia and the United States of America; award Northeast just compensation in an amount to be determined at trial; and to grant such further relief as the Court deems just and proper. It is being represented by James A. Walls, Michael S. Garrison and Tamara B. Williamson.

Next thing we know, ex-WVU President Garrison will be litigating against Monongalia County Schools for the right to operate air polluting wells near Skyview Elementary.

Oh, wait, Mon Schools hasn’t moved against the wells, no suit on the horizon. That’s right, Mon Schools lawyers-up to make sure it can put a school, such as Eastwood Elementary, smack into the middle of horrendous traffic vortex and air pollution hazards, Just like WVU. But to protect schoolchildren from air pollution? You’ll have to hold your breath. Read the rest of this entry »

AND SKYVIEW “INDUSTRIAL PARK” ELEMENTARY

“Susquehanna Named Most Endangered River in the Nation” (via American Rivers):

American Rivers, which every year names the 10 most endangered rivers in the country, put the Susquehanna at the top of this year’s list, citing the rush to develop the enormous natural gas reserves in the region without considering the risk to clean water, rivers and human health. The most endangered river of 2010 was the Upper Delaware, which is similarly threatened by natural gas extraction.

The Susquehanna, one of the longest rivers in the nation, flows over the Marcellus Shale region, a rock formation underlying large swaths of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, and containing vast reserves of natural gas.  As part of the fracking process used to extract natural gas, massive amounts of water are withdrawn from rivers and streams, mixed with sand and toxic chemicals and pumped underground to fracture the shale under extreme pressure.  There are currently limited facilities for treating the highly toxic wastewater that results from the extraction process and few government regulations to prevent it from seeping into rivers like the Susquehanna, which provides drinking water for more than six million people.

“Natural gas drilling poses one of the greatest risks our nation’s rivers have faced in decades,” says Andrew Fahlund, senior vice president for conservation at American Rivers.  “Without strong regulations, public health and drinking water will be threatened by the toxic, cancer-causing pollution that results from hydraulic fracturing.”

“The Susquehanna is one of the most ancient rivers on Earth. In its current state, it is a far cry from the pristine and primeval watershed that existed only a few centuries ago. The threat posed by the natural gas industry and horizontal hydrofracturing will eclipse the environmental legacy of the lumber and coal-mining industries combined, and as a long-time advocate for the protection of the Susquehanna, I believe we must call for an immediate moratorium on all water withdrawals and all natural gas drilling until the technology and legislation catches up with the desire and need to exploit these fossil-fuel resources,” said Don Williams, Susquehanna River Sentinel.

“Recent problems caused by poorly-regulated gas drilling in Pennsylvania include: ground water pollution in Susquehanna County resulting in loss of a community’s drinking water, a blowout in Bradford County that went uncontrolled, allowing toxic fracking chemicals to flow into the Susquehanna, deadly accidents at a gas well site as well as chemical spills, explosions and fires.  We call on the Susquehanna River Basin Commission to immediately impose a moratorium on any new drilling in the Susquehanna River Basin, as was done by the Delaware River Basin Commission,” said Jeff Schmidt, Director of the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter.  “Until Pennsylvania, the SRBC and the federal government adopt new laws and regulations to fully protect public health and the environment from the dangers of Marcellus Shale gas drilling, no new drilling should be allowed,” Schmidt continued.

The next river in the crosshairs: the Monongahela, and the city of Morgantown:

A natural gas drilling company is challenging the constitutionality of a West Virginia town’s recent ban on natural gas drilling that involves hydraulic fracturing within a mile outside city limits. On June 21, the Morgantown City Council voted 6-1 to ban drilling at a site along the Monongahela River. Shortly thereafter, Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) filed a lawsuit against the city of Morgantown in Monongalia County Circuit Court requesting a temporary injunction to prevent the city’s ordinance from becoming effective, reported the Associated Press. A judge denied the order without ruling on the plaintiff’s larger arguments. Read the rest of this entry »

SPECIAL TO NEW WOODBURN COMMUNITY SCHOOL

 Bow-And-Arrow-Killing City Deer in Morgantown, West Virginia

by Victor Rip

What’s next? Trapping and cooking your neighbor’s dog for a holiday feast?  Bow and arrow shooting is the most brutal and stupid way imaginable to attempt to control urban deer populations. The West Virginia DNR is to blame for the deer population. The DNR has gone wild and continues to pump up the deer population far beyond ecological levels because the DNR makes big money off the sale of hunting licenses.

But first: what is this, the 9th century both morally and technologically?

In one of our special featured links, most brutal and stupid, The Humane Society explains the brutality of bow and arrow killing, as do Minnesota city officials and schoolchildren who have witnessed deer walking around with arrows stuck through their heads.

Bow and arrow killing gets an A for brutality and an F for effectiveness. Sharpshooter bullet killing, while brutal, if somewhat less so, at least would be more effective in the short term, if done scientifically, though both methods are entirely ineffective in the long term.

Morgantown City Council opted for the cheapest, most brutal, and basically phony solution, unlike say the city of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and many other towns and cities which have had the good sense to reject a city bowhunt that:

“would have to kill a lot of animals and be repeated, and wounded animals might need to be tracked onto private property. ‘We do not believe an urban hunt is a viable option for the town,’ says the memo from leaders of the police, public works, and parks and recreation departments. Instead, they recommend the town provide information to residents who want to protect their gardens.”

Dogs that poop a lot around gardens help no little bit. And there are plenty of other solutions, as explained below.

So much for the cheap shoot-first, appearances-over-substance decision of Morgantown City Council.

And by the way, anyone who has ever visited or lived in a town that actually is flooded with deer, particularly out west, and where the people live with the deer and therefore drive more slowly and safely, would consider the idea that Morgantown has a huge amount of deer to be a joke.

All that said, it wouldn’t hurt to reduce the deer population gradually, so how should the city begin to do so in a way that is actually effective and compassionate?

The City of Morgantown, along with cities and counties all across West Virginia, should start by suing the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources for violation of WV Code 20-2-1. The DNR created the big deer population in the first place and is responsible for it. Not only did the DNR explode upward the deer population, it insists on continuing to do so.

The only way to effectively and humanely control city deer populations in Morgantown and elsewhere is to control the state deer population. The DNR refuses. So as the cities and counties sue the DNR, the state legislature should pass further wildlife laws to get the DNR under real control. The DNR deer population policies harm farmers, gardeners, drivers, and the deer themselves, as our next featured link, “Negative Impacts of High Deer Population [In West Virginia],” explains in detail.

The idiotic DNR deer policies set up city governments to then do stupid and brutal things, such as bow-and-arrow-killing deer.

It’s long since time to put the Morgantown City Council deer hunt into badly needed context. The deer population has been stupidly and brutally confronted because unpopular but cheap, simpleton, kill-first measures are pushed in a vacuum of understanding.

The 1995 state deer report linked above finds that “The increase in the deer herd is attributable in part to the primary objectives of DNR: increasing the deer population to a level that will support the harvesting of 183,000 per year by the year 2000. This will require a deer population of 40 deer per square mile” even though “generally accepted scientific research has found that deer in populations over 20 deer per square mile harms forests…” 

Such artificially inflated (DNRtificially inflated) deer populations also damage habitat, wildlife, vegetation, and the non-hunting economy (farming & forestry), while increasing traffic accidents (especially in rural areas) and angering gardeners and causing city councils to go all stupid and brutal.

The DNR refuses to accept its responsibility: “The DNR has not set a threshold defining when deer populations have become too high. Current deer populations are estimated by the DNR at 10 to 90 deer per square mile, with an average of 34.1…. [Though] studies indicate that negative outcomes occur when deer populations exceed 20 deer per square mile…the goal of the DNR is to bring the state’s herd to an average of 40 deer per square mile.”

The main problem is not the deer, it’s the DNR. That’s why the City of Morgantown should sue the DNR. That’s why Morgantown’s delegates to the legislature should introduce legislation to bring the state deer herd into ecological balance.

The DNR is not just irresponsible to the citizens, it is stupid and backwards. Fewer people nationwide are hunting, including in West Virginia, yet the DNR has grown the deer herd at the exact same time that the number of hunters continues to drop: “Hunting is a huge part of life in West Virginia but, mirroring a national trend, the number of hunters buying permits has been declining for years. The state sold 154,763 hunting permits to residents in 2006, according to the Division of Natural Resources, a 17 percent drop from 1997.”

In 2010, the number of deer hunters fell even more steeply: “A Division of Natural Resources number-cruncher has identified yet another factor that contributed to last year’s 31 percent deer harvest decline. Steve Brown, a DNR senior planner, believes at least part of the drop-off occurred because 12,000 fewer hunters ventured afield. Brown based his hypothesis on hunting-license sales, which plunged sharply in January, February and March of 2010 and never recovered.”

Bow hunting is illegal in much of Europe but not in Texas and the US where this deer was shot:

Sorry, City of Morgantown, you can’t combat these humane trends with your gruesome and pitiful bows and arrows. Try using the law for a change. We know you know how to do so when you are absolutely shaken from your lethargy and forced to do so.

And so the second worst problem after the DNR is the Morgantown City Council, which is probably more likely to get a person killed in a bow and arrow urban deer hunt than it is to solve any pressing deer issues.

Some in the WV legislature now want to introduce hunting classes into schools to help stem the loss of hunters. The more humane realize that those times should be gone: “The decline in hunters is something that should be celebrated…according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which said Wednesday the West Virginia bill is a bad idea. ‘Americans are compassionate people, and that’s why hunting is on the decline,’ said activist liaison Nicole Matthews. ‘Instead of teaching kids to be insensitive to suffering, we should be helping them appreciate nature in ways that aren’t destructive’.”

And so too should the DNR finally be forced to not be destructive to nature. The DNR should stop clear-cutting forests to plant deer food to grow the state herd. And it should stop doing everything else it does to increase the deer population. The DNR should plant trees to reforest all its clear-cuts to help gradually bring the deer back to ecological levels. The Morgantown City Council should be a leading part of efforts to do just that, to force the DNR to do the job it is supposed to be doing.

Bow-and-arrow-killing urban deer is the DNR’s advice, but the DNR has no credibility on this issue. The DNR caused the deer overpopulation in the first place and continues to be at fault. Heeding the advice of the DNR on this issue is like heeding the advice of the fox about the henhouse. The DNR heavily funds itself by selling hunting licenses, so the DNR is hopelessly compromised. The DNR has gone wild on deer and should be sued to bring the state deer herd back into ecological balance. Any other approach is counterproductive, backwards, and brutal. Read the rest of this entry »

SUPERINTENDENT: RESEARCH SHOWS WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO NOT STARVE KIDS! RESEARCH SHOWS! IT DOES!

“There has been research that shows hunger affects a child’s ability to learn,” said Monongalia County Schools Superintendent Frank Devono, at the school board meeting this past Tuesday, as reported in today’s Dominion Post. Well who would have thunk it?

Who but Superintendent Devono would think that research is needed to make such a point, that anyone would need to be convinced by research to know this, that anyone would need to hear of research to be concerned about denying children a day’s meal or two, or that “ability to learn” is the reason for the school district’s obligation, its imperative to feed children who lack money?

If research showed that hungry children actually learn more quickly would the the school district banish food from its domain?

And the phoniness. Superintendent Devono and company have been absolutely contemptuous of research all throughout Mon Schools’ largely secretive Woodburn and Easton school closing and siting process, in regard to a wide variety of humanitarian concerns for children, including vital safety and health issues, let alone the ability to learn.

The state basically requires that children go to school throughout the day, therefore the state should pay for the food the children need for the school day. Mon Schools’ should be pushing the state to fund all the children’s food. Mon Schools should be soliciting funds for food and for better food in addition to (or in place of) the multimillion dollars raised for an inherently dangerous sport like that big money pig: football. Instead Mon Schools pats itself on the back for standing up to the state’s insistence that it deny food to hungry children. Not a word reported that Mon Schools has done anything to raise money for food, or that Mon Schools actively pushes the state to take more responsibility for providing what it ought.

Why did Mon Schools not stand up to the state and its anti-educational, unsafe, and unhealthy consolidation of Easton and Woodburn Elementary? Oh, that’s right: because the school board’s and superintendent’s contempt for research and other knowledge about the well-being of the schoolchildren was, and remains, so great that they actively pushed for the dangerous fiasco, and continue to boast and preen about and attempt to justify the toxic idiocy. An act of pathetic comedy superceded only by its sheer negligence and unceasing menace.

The board and the superintendent are defensive about not having collected $240,000 in school lunch costs this past year. So all of a sudden citing research and their great humanitarian compassion for children, of which they are otherwise contemptuous, is laughable.

The state of West Virginia has allowed resource extraction companies to pillage the children of West Virginia forever, so the state should be viewed in the dimmest in of lights. The superintendent’s highly selective and oh so convenient recourse to research should be viewed in the same light.

MONONGALIA COUNTY SCHOOLS ADMINISTRATION: BEYOND THE PALE

According to the most recent site plan, below, for Eastwood Elementary, parents and children from Woodburn, Jerome Park, Woodland Terrace, and elsewhere will be forced to use WV 705 to enter and exit the new school. Nothing could be more unsafe, inconvenient, impractical or at times impossible.

Others are also endangered and disregarded, including parents and children who need to pick up and be picked up after school and drive downtown using US 119 (Mileground Road), and parents and children who might need to travel from Eastwood to Mountaineer Middle just off US 119 toward downtown.

That means taking up to an extra 5 or 6 mile roundabout loop through some of the most congested and hazardous parts of greater Morgantown to get where you need to go, to get home or downtown from Eastwood, or it means risking getting T-boned by traffic in crossing arterial highway 705 to make the immediate left turn from Eastwood necessary for the much shorter route. That left turn is often so hazardous or logistically difficult-to-impossible that WVDOT may not even allow it.

So where then is the sensible and absolutely necessary second access and egress for the new school? Where is the design, the plan, any details? Nowhere to be found. And nowhere on the most recent Eastwood site plan below. Why?

Is the Mon Schools administration stupid to the point of insanity? Or negligent to the point of criminality? Those seem to be the only two possible explanations. Is Mon Schools purposefully trying to punish and abuse the parents and children who currently attend Woodburn Elementary? Or is this more of a bit of accidental administrative negligence and incompetence?

Obviously an access/egress, or at least a right turn egress, should be built from the parking lot area of Eastwood to Tramore Lane (and thus to the Mileground Road/US 119). This is the only way to provide many students and their parents a much shorter and somewhat less hazardous route back to their homes or to downtown Morgantown.

Amazingly, this access and egress ALREADY EXISTS BUT MON SCHOOLS CURRENTLY PLANS TO GET RID OF IT, PER BELOW.

That’s right. The mobile home parcel being purchased by Mon Schools is served by Tramore Lane but Mon Schools’ most recent and longstanding design and plans disallow such access:

Above: Eastwood Site Plan, posted at BOE Eastwood website, summer, 2011

The Mon Schools design above even erases the road (Tramore Lane) that currently exists leading to and from the schoolgrounds and that will exist whether or not the school makes use of it. We restore the road and access points below, which currently enter and exit the area that would contain the school parking lot: Read the rest of this entry »

EASTWOOD ELEMENTARY ON THE MILEGROUND

Mounds of dirt and manure everywhere. But not of the healthy ecological kind. Some of the legal muck:

The Mileground site violates the mandatory provisions of Policy 6200 202.06. The safety of new school sites are specifically regulated by this State Board Policy (126CSR172 – 0 – Title 126 – Legislative Rule – Board of Education – Series 172 – Handbook On Planning School Facilities (6200)), which mandates that (bold added):

202.06. For the safety of students, the site shall be located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as:

a. Railroads, arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion
b. Noise, toxic gas escapes from […] odoriferous plants or industries
[…]
e. Taverns, fire stations, bulk storage plants for flammable liquid, and property zoned as industrial
f. Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment

The statutory violations create severe harm and menacing threats, including:

1.         an increased propensity for crashes involving students in cars and buses – according to a study based on police reports, the heavily-traveled arterial intersection in front of the school is one of the most dangerous intersections for crashes in the entire region;

2.         the ever-enduring threat of enormous civil and criminal liability risks – if there is a calamity involving the students in the arterial highways or their intersection adjacent to the school or near it, in flagrant violation of the mandatory statutes (or if there is any other statute-related calamity), the civil and criminal liability lawsuits will dwarf the total cost of building the school, and render INVISIBLE any monies already spent;

3.         vehicle exhaust air pollution above urban background pollution levels – the scientifically and medically known heart and lung damage (to “sensitive receptors” (young children) who live or attend school in close proximity to high traffic roads and gas stations) causes elevated rates of asthma, bronchitis, flu, and other diseases: cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, leukemia, all potentially fatal;

4.         traffic congestion “approaching gridlock” poisons and entraps students – recent studies find a) “rush hours” congestion about 6 hours per day (7-9 am, noon, and 2:30-6 pm) on the arterials engulfing the school site, b) nationally rated worst possible “levels of service” (congestion): “D” and “F” (“approaching gridlock”), and c) afternoon Mileground arterial traffic speeds dropping from 14.1 mph to 8.4 mph (average) and from 7.7 mph to 6.2 mph (rush hours) if the school is added to the Mileground, and average vehicular delay at the school-front arterial intersection doubling with the addition of the school, causing “entrapment” to be not only “possible,” or likely, but inevitable;

5.         gas stations and vehicle repair shops increase the leukemia rate by 400% – in children living nearby, according to studies; Mileground commerce consists mainly of vehicle repair shops, car dealerships, and gas stations, including three gas stations within a few hundred meters of the site, making an impending Sheetz gas station the fourth. The station is schematically designed to be located immediately adjacent to the school site and building and likely sharing a school drive. Read the rest of this entry »

OFFICIAL IDIOCY AT ITS FINEST

DEVONO: Mileground site an “easy choice.”

And why not? For Devono it was an easy choice to advocate for paddling children in schools too, just a few years before the state outlawed such behavior. What Devono advocated for quickly became codified in law as a kind of child abuse. And what is the Mileground site but another form of child abuse? And any more legal?

As reported in the Dominion Post at the Eastwood Elementary symbolic groundbreaking on the Mileground:

Superintendent Devono: “This is such an exciting opportunity…” DP: “He also said…the [Mileground] site…[was] an easy choice.”

SBA Director and Eastwood grantor Mark Manchin: “I am excited about this opportunity…”

Former State Senator Mike Oliverio: “Eastwood Elementary can be a model for the rest of the country.”

So much for the negligent official backers and the clueless official cheerleaders of Eastwood at its menacing, damaging site: a life-threatening, polluted, congested vortex of crashes, vehicle exhaust, and hazardous commercial and commuter activity that violates state health and safety mandates and various other state statutes.

What about the people who actually have to use the site? Judy Sheers:

“[A] concern…shared among many parents is traffic. ‘The location already has a lot of traffic and with a new school here it could become a problem,’ she said.”

That “concern” can go down as the understatement of the year if not decades, especially pending any calamities at and along the “problem” site.

And the schoolchildren? Abigail Lemine:

“I just don’t like where it is located. There is really bad traffic.”

The oh so knowing and responsible officials will no doubt try to assure this student with eyes for the obvious that she does not know what she knows and that they, the oh so caring officials, will protect students with Mon Schools’ magic fairy dust.

Superintendent Devono:

“the site…an easy choice.”

The ironies of siting a school for small children in this maw of dangers are almost indescribable.

Read the rest of this entry »

TRACKING DOWN THE OUTLAWS

Via Daily Mail:

State school board ignores law in Kenna

IDEAS TOWARD A COMBINED EASTON/WOODBURN SCHOOL ON THE WOODBURN SCHOOLGROUNDS

See newest designs in his Woodburn Presentation:

Read the rest of this entry »

OR WHAT ARE THE GOOD LAWS FOR?

The impending Eastwood Elementary Mileground site sets up children for a variety of potential disasters, given the always present vehicle exhaust air pollution and arterial highways and intersection crash hazards and entrapment by congestion.

If Eastwood is built on the Mileground, and if there is a calamity at or near the Eastwood Mileground site involving school children – 3 year-olds to 11 year-olds – and it takes only one calamity – then the top county and state school officials should go to prison. Or what are the good laws for?:

By the Legislative Rule that is State Board Policy 6200, new school sites are explicitly, specifically mandated (not recommended) mandated to be “located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as“:

“[a] arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion…[b] noise, toxic gas escapes from…odoriferous plants or industries…[e] bulk storage plants for flammable liquid…. [f] Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment.”

The insoluble conditions of all the provisions in “a” and “f” currently exist at the Mileground site and will always exist. The “noise” provision of “b” currently and insolubly exists at the Mileground site. Provision “e” and the latter half of provision “b” are impending at the Mileground site, or at the least seriously threatened, in the form of a Sheetz gas station that has been schematically designed. Sheetz is eager to open and operate this gas station at the immediate border of the Eastwood Mileground site, close to the building itself. These are insoluble, plain English, new school, student safety violations of this Legislative Rule that has the force and effect of law, and to which the Defendants are bound by state Code. This is a highly unusual site in being so extremely unstable and therefore negligently unknowable, even as it is projected to degrade in its immediate environmental quality year-by-year. This is an extremely hazardous site, potentially lethal, and projected to intensify in hazards, year by year, decade by decade, to an ultimately unknowable yet increasingly more menacing degree. The alternative site (or sites) is an extremely safe, stable residential location that is lawful and suitable in every way.

Read the rest of this entry »

ANOTHER NEGLIGENT MON SCHOOLS ELEMENTARY SITE

Remember what we wrote about the asinine location of Skyview Elementary last year?:

Opened in 2006, Skyview (consolidated) Elementary sits far from residential areas and uphill from Morgantown Industrial Park. Think about that for a moment. What a brilliant location for the lungs of young children! Now, with an impending new road and upgraded water and sewer lines, the Industrial Park is set to expand.

First, such school siting is flat wrong in more ways than one as we have documented in detail at this site. Schools and schoolchildren benefit from being located in neighborhoods. And vice versa.

Second, in 2009, Skyview Elementary had to be closed in the midst of the school day (along with next-door Westwood Middle) due to Industrial Park “smoke [that] got into the schools’ ventilation systems and filled the buildings with smoke.”

During such an incident the previous year apparently, the students were not evacuated and “had to deal with it.” One wonders (and the School District should test for) what difficult-to-detect toxins on a more regular basis pass into the school ventilation systems there above the soon to expand Industrial Park.

Well now it only gets worse with the gas wells in place in the industrial park. Bring on the additional air pollution, which is extremely hazardous for young children – Daily Mail:

Duane Nichols, spokesman for the Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition, said the two well sites are too close to the Skyview Elementary and Westwood Middle schools, just off River Road, as well as to the area’s water supply and the other facilities in the Morgantown Industrial Park.

“And this is just the first of more wells to come,” he said. “We’re all going to be in a state of emotional distress.”

Bartolo said he understands there’s concern for the public welfare and what sort of impact Marcellus shale drilling could have on water and air.

“It makes sense to me with that kind of impact looming over us that somebody puts the brakes on this and further investigates it,” he said.

And now “a fixed frac water recycling facility in the Morgantown Industrial Park” is moving in on Skyview Elementary. What’s next, a nuclear waste dump? That’s what happens when Mon Schools sites schools with great negligence: the unknowable and the uncontrollable.

The impending Eastwood Elementary Mileground site faces the same kind of potential disasters, only worse, given the always present vehicle exhaust air pollution and arterial highways and intersection crash hazards and entrapment by congestion.

If Eastwood is built on the Mileground, and if there is a calamity at or near the Eastwood Mileground site involving school children – 3 year-olds to 11 year-olds – and it takes only one calamity – then the top county and state school officials should go to prison. Or what are the good laws for?:

By the Legislative Rule that is State Board Policy 6200, new school sites are explicitly, specifically mandated (not recommended) mandated to be “located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as“:

“[a] arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion…[b] noise, toxic gas escapes from…odoriferous plants or industries…[e] bulk storage plants for flammable liquid…. [f] Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment.”

The insoluble conditions of all the provisions in “a” and “f” currently exist at the site and will always exist. The “noise” provision of “b” currently and insolubly exists at the site. Provision “e” and the latter half of provision “b” are impending at the site, or at the least seriously threatened, in the form of a Sheetz gas station that has been schematically designed. Sheetz is eager to open and operate this gas station at the immediate border of the Eastwood Mileground site, close to the building itself. These are insoluble, plain English, new school, student safety violations of this Legislative Rule that has the force and effect of law, and to which the Defendants are bound by state Code. This is a highly unusual site in being so extremely unstable and therefore negligently unknowable, even as it is projected to degrade in its immediate environmental quality year-by-year. This is an extremely hazardous site, potentially lethal, and projected to intensify in hazards, year by year, decade by decade, to an ultimately unknowable yet increasingly more menacing degree. The alternative site is an extremely safe, stable residential location that is lawful and suitable in every way.

And look out, Skyview:

Read the rest of this entry »

DUMPED ON BY SBA AND BOE, LIKE WOODBURN…

SEE KENNA ELEMENTARY POWERPOINT AND WEBPAGE. Read the rest of this entry »

SCHOOL BUILDING AUTHORITY OF WEST VIRGINIA STRIKES AGAIN

This guy

is the state official who directs the agency

(SBA)

that awarded the $8.6 million grant to build the $21+ million school facility on the Mileground.

The agency that

this guy

directs

approved the Mileground site:

This guy

personally inspected the site.

And remarked how wonderful.

Thanks, buddy.

Why don’t you go crap on the health and safety mandates protecting children in your own community? if you really feel that is something you have to do.

This guy

is Mark Manchin

Director of the SBA. Read the rest of this entry »

THE MONONGALIA COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD HAS BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS

Why are the most stupid and asinine officials in charge of your children?

Judge James C. Stucky in Kanawha County Circuit Court today dismissed the case to block Eastwood Elementary from the Mileground.

We will appeal.

• WV state Rule 6200 forbids it. This state policy bans new school sites that are not “located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as: a. … arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion b. Noise, toxic gas escapes from … odoriferous plants or industries … e. … bulk storage plants for flammable liquid, and property zoned as industrial f. Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment…”

• Each “county board” of education is “subject to…the rules of the State Board” of Education according to WV state Code: §18-5-13. Authority of boards generally. These rules include “rule number 6200 of the West Virginia Board (Handbook On Planning School Facilities).” 

The Mileground site violates the mandatory provisions of the Legislative Rule §126-172 and State Board Policy or Rule 6200, which the SBA administers. The safety of new school sites are specifically regulated by this doctrine “126CSR172 – 0 – Title 126 – Legislative Rule – Board of Education – Series 172 – Handbook On Planning School Facilities (6200)” 202.06 “School Site Planning…[and] Location”:

“For the safety of students, [any and every] new school site shall be located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as: a. … arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion b. Noise, toxic gas escapes from … odoriferous plants or industries … e. … bulk storage plants for flammable liquid, and property zoned as industrial f. Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment…”

The intended Eastwood Mileground site is an egregious mass violation of multiple site prohibiting provisions above. The site is a dangerous, potentially lethal, even predictably lethal mass of insoluble violations.

Similarly breached is another Legislative Rule:

“§126-42-7. County Board of Education Responsibilities. 7.6. Facilities. 7.6.1. County boards shall ensure that facilities meet the standards set forth in W. Va. 126CSR172, WVBE Policy 6200, Handbook on Planning School Facilities.”

West Virginia Code §29A-1-2(d): ” ‘Legislative Rule’ means every rule, as defined in subsection (i) of this section, proposed or promulgated by an agency pursuant to this chapter. Legislative Rule includes every rule which, when promulgated after or pursuant to authorization of the Legislature, has (1) the force of law, or (2) supplies a basis for the imposition of civil or criminal liability, or (3) grants or denies a specific benefit.”

If the Eastwood Mileground school siting proceeds, and if a severe or deadly calamity to a student occurs in the prohibited features at and around the new school site, then punitive and civil liability damages should be imposed against the top Monongalia County School Officials and the top WV School Building Authority officials, along with multi-million dollar civil liability damages against the various educational agencies.

The unusual dangerous features at and around the Eastwood Mileground school site are prohibited by state Rule for a reason. One does not have to be a prophet to predict potential disaster or likely disaster on and around those deadly highways.

The officials and agencies involved do not have the right, moral or legal, to roll loaded dice with children’s lives. It’s potentially lethal. It’s wrong. And given an essentially predictable calamity, it’s criminal. In West Virginia:

“Involuntary Manslaughter involves the accidental causing of death of another person, although unintended, which death is the proximate result of negligence so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life.”

How green can it be to site children at an accident prone and polluted intersection prohibited by state mandate? Why is Mon Schools so mean?

Oh, that’s right, Mon Schools Superintendent Frank Devono is on record as a strong advocate of corporal punishment in schools. Hitting kids with heavy paddles, blocks of wood. That is “spanking” in schools. In 1987 the Charleston Daily Mail (Jack Deutsch, February 18) reported that Frank Devono

the president of the state Association of Elementary School Principals…complained that opponents of corporal punishment always emphasize that paddling is a negative experience.

“Where is the positive? Why is it always the negative?” asked Frank Devono, president of the principals association.

We don’t make up this idiocy, folks. We just report it. Yes, adults hitting children with blocks of wood is such a “positive” experience for everyone involved. Of course. Who could imagine otherwise? Not Devono.

Devono spoke in favor of the bill, which would remove the 12-hour “cooling off” period. Under current state law, principals must wait 12 hours after warning students of a paddling before carrying out the punishment.

The bill was defeated, fortunately. And seven years later, sanity prevailed even moreso when the state of West Virginia banned corporal punishment – hitting kids with paddles – from schools altogether.

But the intended mean green school on the 705/Mileground intersection goes thumping forth under the iron hand of Superintendent Devono, courtesy of a WV School Building Authority grant. The state Supreme Court needs to step up and enforce the state Rules and state Codes that ban such hazardous and potentially lethal sites.

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NEW WVU NURSERY SCHOOL LOCATED WITHIN A FEW YARDS OF A MAJOR INTERSECTION AND ARTERIAL HIGHWAYS

No wonder the West Virginia University administration refused to oppose selling their horrible intersection land for Eastwood Elementary, the new Mon Schools preK-5th grade school intended for the WV 705 / US 119 intersection site.

In fall of 2009 when WVU administrators were largely and stealthily steering Eastwood Elementary to its intended intersection site, some of these same administrators were congratulated or doing the congratulating at the September 2009 opening of the WVU “Nursery” School at the intersection of WV 705 / US 19 / US 7:

Evidently, WVU administrators are happy to place children in harm’s way on a daily basis: elevated levels of vehicle exhaust, which damage hearts and lungs, especially those of “sensitive receptors” young children. The science on this is not pretty. The health and education professionals at WVU should be ashamed, at the least.

See: Asthma Elementary and No Health and Safety and What Not to Do and Damaging Children for Life.

How appropriate that the children in the photo appear to be wearing hard hats. Or is it? Rather they should be wearing gas masks.

Any number of available locations on or near the WVU Evansdale campus are far more healthy for siting a nursery school. Who was the main administrator involved in siting the Nursery school and its two playgrounds within scant feet of arterial highways and their intersection? Was it the same WVU administrator or administrators centrally involved in directing the siting of Eastwood Elementary?

Let the administrator or administrators come forth proudly and self identify.

In the meantime, it seems that the School Building Authority of West Virginia (SBA) has recently created a new position, maybe been forced to by the West Virginia state Board of Education. It’s possible that our (and other) school movements have forced it into existence: an SBA job “vacancy” – or is it actually a new position? – “Technical Assistant, Senior“: note the job description; look at the first listed “knowledge” requirements: