New Woodburn Community School

WHEN WEATHER HITS AND TRAFFIC SNARLS

Woodburn Principal Charlene Brown sent out a mass telephone call at 2:25 today, about an hour after students were supposed to finish school for the day explaining to parents that none of the buses had arrived yet and that it was not clear when the buses would arrive to bring the children home. So the teachers remained with the students in school.

Meanwhile, student walkers had been home for nearly an hour, throwing snowballs and building snowmen.

Consolidating schools means more children have to travel more distances to get home, causing all kinds of problems. Mon Schools has cut its number of elementary schools nearly in half since 1998, while the number of students has increased.

Mon Schools decision to have a 2 hour early dismissal today was a major fail (see comments at WBOY article). Within a half hour of the first flakes, at the latest, it was clear the snow and traffic were going to be major problems, growing worse by the minute. The dismissal should have been immediate, closer to 4 hours early dismissal rather than 2 hours. Read the rest of this entry »

LEADING FROM BEHIND

The Dominion Post reports today that in a study on graduation rates only half of the local school respondents ” ‘agreed or strongly agreed that their opinions are respected’ in their respective school – compared to 65 percent nationally who answered the same way.”

The Post also reports:

“[Mon County School] Board member Mike Kelly, who has long championed higher graduation rates in the county, said outreach will be the key to success – specifically, getting those parents and other caregivers to school for conferences and other interaction. “We’re going to have to find a way to break the ice,” he said.

Outreach? Why has Mon Schools failed for over a decade to make all its school board meetings available by audio and/or video podcast online? That simple step would improve outreach dramatically. It’s easy to do and could be done immediately. Why does the board continue to refuse to make its meetings widely accessible? Read the rest of this entry »

SYSTEMATIC MISDIRECTION

Superintendent Frank Devono claims in today’s Dominion Post that “If the judge does rule against us” on the green school site “we’ll do what we need to do to get the site compliant.”

Maybe the Superintendent will jack the site up on 500 meter stilts above the health-damaging vehicle exhaust.

Maybe the Superintendent will direct the Department of Transportation to abandon the impending divided four-lane highways and four-lane intersection or to move both highways and their intersection hundreds of meters away. Good luck with that.

The point of the lawsuit is that not only is the site not compliant but that it cannot be made compliant, and the Superintendent knows it. Or should.

The Superintendent also says fatuously, “I’m not even sure if a judge would say no at this point, since the state board [of education] has already approved it.”

How dare a judge find a state agency in violation of the law!

Is the separation of powers between the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of government not taught in the schools that the Superintendent oversees?

Judge Jennifer Bailey will hold a hearing on the lawsuit in Kanawha County Circuit Court on Friday, February 18 at 1:30. The hearing, according to the judge’s office, is to be about two things, 1) the state’s motion to dismiss, and then 2) a status conference.

THE BULLYING STARTS AT THE TOP

Will the administrators at Monongalia County Schools ever grow up and out of their culture of bullying? How do they expect to deal with any bullying among students when the administrators don’t hesitate to bully themselves? The administrators continue to try to bully a new elementary school into a zone of health damaging vehicle exhaust and crash-prone heavy traffic over the loud protests of parents. The school board bullies forward onto the site right along with the administration.

There is something rotten in Mon Schools. It starts in Central Office, is rubber stamped or overlooked by the school board, and extends out from there.

And they talk about reducing bullying among the students. What a joke. The administration needs to first get rid of its own despicable culture of bullying.

TIME FOR THE RIF LIST TO RIP

What kind of threat or incompetence is the reduction-in-force (RIF) list?

The Dominion Post reports:

Does Mon Schools every year expect a mass die-off of students so that, Hey! We may not need 50, 100, or 150 teachers and staff next year!

The RIF list is idiotic at best. Threatening otherwise.

The student population scarcely fluctuates except to rise on average. And even when it does dip some years, instead of cutting teachers and staff that Mon Schools may desperately need the following year and who provide continuity and gain experience, why not give the students a break, cut their classes sizes a bit, thereby providing for all the teachers and staff and overall helping out the school, the teachers, and the students, their education not least. Additional teachers per students should be looked at as a wonderful opportunity, rather than as a curse to be avoided.

How many RIF workers were transferred each year as opposed to being cut? It’s not called the SHIFT in force list, it’s called the REDUCTION in force list. Being transferred (shifted) to another school across town as opposed to being cut (reduced, a euphemism for cut) from all the schools in the area are two totally different things, and such workers should be on two totally different lists, if such lists in some reasonable form are necessary at all. But Superintendent Devono irresponsibly and unprofessionally talks and acts as if mass layoffs could ensue, not least by even having such a list. This outrageous posturing has a severe chilling effect upon teachers and staff from feeling free to speak their minds.

RIF shifts and cuts can be used as an anti-educational way to save a few bucks. But save for whom? Not for the students whose class sizes would remain jacked up, not for the employees who contribute to the life and culture of the school and the local communities, not to their continuing work growth and experience. Read the rest of this entry »

NEGLECTING THE CHILDREN AND THE PUBLIC

Marsh Fork Elementary, partially funded by the SBA, will be built with “sloped roofs” which “are another aspect of the plan that the School Building Authority will not fund” even though the local school “board finds [such roofs] imperative to the area’s climate.”

Furthermore, “the School Building Authority will only finance a 3,100 square foot gymnasium,” forcing the local school board which “wants to provide a gym the size of Fairdale’s” to “negotiate to make up the difference.”

So while the SBA won’t provide for the  needs and interests of the responsible local school board, the SBA will, by all that is wrong in education, enforce its own anti-educational, pro-dropout minimum class sizes. The WV SBA is the outrageous joke of the educational world.

The sooner the WV legislature reviews and corrects the anti-democracy and anti-educational effects of the SBA, maybe by abolishing it for something far better, the better off will be the students and the public.

Meanwhile in Morgantown the SBA is totally negligent in approving a dangerous, scandalously expensive, vehicle-exhaust-polluted and health damaging site for the new “Eastwood” “green” elementary school. A school that destroys nine acres of urban farmland and that both endangers and damages children’s health at exorbitant cost to the public is the furthest thing from responsible, let along environmentally or health conscious.

Such a school siting is not only remarkably stupid, it’s grossly negligent – not exactly what the public, or what the WV legislature, one assumes, desires in state agencies. The WV School Building Authority is a menace to society, anti-educational in effect, and unresponsive to the public. Read the rest of this entry »

MON BOE COMPARES ITSELF TO THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Hell freezes over. Pigs fly. Pope declares himself atheist.

Mon Schools compares itself to the National Archives.

From now on, for Freedom of Information Act requests, Monongalia County Schools is charging 35 cents per electronic page for public documents that pre-exist in electronic form.

West Virginia University, for example, charges nothing for electronic records, but comparing itself to WVU, let alone to a public school district, is not good enough for Mon Schools, which compares itself to the United States National Archives. Mon Schools Superintendent Frank Devono:

“This is just getting us in line with what other organizations like the National Archives are doing…”

Now, that’s a powerful comparison. Aim high, no?

“…as we work through all the new technology and new media out there.”

New technology and new media? Like PDF documents and email?

To say that the comparison of Mon Schools to the US National Archives is entirely ridiculous entirely misses the point. The comparison is insane.

But let’s set sanity aside for a moment and consider just what does the National Archives charge for electronic records?:

$15.00 per file.

What does a file consist of?

Well, take a random example, the most recent addition to the National Archives: the newly added Central Foreign Policy Files.

Central Foreign Policy Files
“We have added 227,201 electronic telegram records and 133,612 withdrawal “card” records to the Department of State’s Central Foreign Policy File for 1973-75 available through AAD. These 360,813 records were identified as permanently valuable and merged with the records previously accessible through AAD following completion of the appraisal of the Subject TAGS used in the Central Foreign Policy File.”

Each file (14 new ones) contains on average over 25,000 records, which comes out to fractions of a cent per record, let alone per page of each record. Plus, some of the records were converted from paper to electronic, not pre-existing in electronic form, and merged into old records. Mon Schools’ new policy charges 35 cents per page of existing electronic materials, and does not convert records from paper, nor does it create new records.

In a recent Freedom of Information Act request of Mon Schools, the requester received 14 PDF records totaling nearly 300 pages. Mon Schools did not even trouble itself to email the 14 records. The requester went into the office and copied the records onto a flash drive supplied by the requester. There was no charge. With Mon Schools new policy the charge would be about $100.00 for the 14 PDF records, of less than 300 total electronic pages.

So it is that even if anyone should accept the insane Mon Schools to National Archives comparison, we see that the National Archives charges $15 for more than 25,000 records, while Mon Schools would charge $100 for 14 records. Two real examples. One insane and illegal policy. Read the rest of this entry »

BURYING THE PUBLIC AND PUBLIC WORK

By law, the US public is allowed to see what its government officials do in its name and on its dime. But Monongalia County Schools wants to make you pay for that right, big time. Mon Schools intends to make it policy that:

“The cost of electronic duplication that involves the duplication of files on disc or thumb drive shall be thirty five cents ($.35) per page.”

The item is on the school board meeting agenda for tonight, Policy 1-02.

Two months ago, Jim Bissett reported in the Dominion Post that Freedom of Information Act expert

Pat McGinley, a WVU law professor who has extensively researched FOIA through the years, said public agencies can only charge for the cost of reproducing the documents and nothing else, which means paper and ink cartridges.

Charging for document searches isn’t allowed under the act, he said.

Not according to Mon Schools, which intends to charge the public for the work of its employees who are already paid by the public. The new FOIA request costs are to include:

“…the actual operator time and computer resource usage required to product the copy.”

As if school employees are not already paid by public funds to do such work.

Unreasonable copy fees are not legal either. For digital copies, the only reasonable fee would be zero:

A digital copy, [said Professor McGinley], technically carries no reproduction costs — unless the agency provides a disc to house the data.

“You’re just e-mailing something,” he said.

Why is Monongalia County Schools so desperate to hide what it is doing? $.35 for a single page of email, which costs nothing to copy? It’s sick. Mon Schools: Where only the monied shall be allowed to attempt to know what goes on. Read the rest of this entry »

TIME TO END THE NEGLIGENCE AND THE RIDICULOUS EXCUSES

Monongalia County Schools Director of Transportation Irv Schuetzner interviewed on WAJR on Wednesday December 15: audio link. Mon Schools needs to do better than this. First, the Director said a hiring bonus for badly needed new drivers could not be given because it would not be fair to current drivers. You have a crisis, Director, that is, the kids have a crisis: there are no drivers often to get the students home at a decent time. Or to get them to some extracurricular events. Therefore, give ALL the drivers a $1,000 bonus or more, even much more, including new hires. That should help all around, and guess what: it’s fair! Mon Schools obviously has the money. If they can blow several million on an unneeded new school site, then they can certainly spend $100,000 or $200,000 or more to help solve a busing crisis. Second, it’s dishonest for the Director to say that the bus drivers have no answers for the Director’s problems. Who is he to speak for them? One answer was given above. Listening to the drivers’ suggestions and solutions on routing and scheduling, and on safety in routing, would solve other problems. Further, as reminder, the Director, should recheck the Woodburn website to remind himself of how the bus drivers forced him to solve the problems of overcrowding on buses and of safety in busing. Third, there are ways to reduce student discipline problems on buses, which could also bring in more drivers: hire aides to ride periodically on buses, when requested by the drivers, that are having discipline problems. That way, the aides can keep order, allowing the drivers to drive. Drivers who don’t have discipline problems don’t need to request aides, but aides should be there on the occasions when drivers request them. We look forward to a future WAJR show featuring bus drivers, and maybe their union representatives, as guests.

The late buses two days before the interview:

THE BUS WORKERS IN STRUGGLE WITH MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION

There have been serious problems with busing all year in Monongalia County Schools. On top of that, there is a serious labor and management conflict ongoing between the bus drivers and their supervisors.

If school board meetings would be televised, everyone could see how this has been playing out for months. (Our green school lawsuit to be heard in Kanawha County requests of the Court many things, including mandatory televised school board meetings, as city council meetings are televised.)

Mon Schools management has been making ill-advised decisions in not acting on the more informed and knowledgeable suggestions of the bus drivers on various routing matters, and other issues. In fact last year the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association (WVSSPA) took Mon Schools to court to bring Mon Schools into legal compliance on busing and safety matters, successfully pushing for a Court order agreement this past July.

Why was the current Mon Schools Director of Transportation hired? Did he have any bus driving or busing experience?

Why did he write and sign a statement allowing children to stand on the buses if overloaded by the bus scheduling for which he is responsible?

The memo is a clear violation. This blog publicized the memo and evidently helped force Mon Schools to retract that policy change. So this conflict is serious and ongoing. It’s much worse than Mon Schools failing to “appreciate” the bus drivers, as was reported on WAJR. Mon Schools too often fails to respect the bus drivers’ knowledge and their rights, which creates a safety menace and various inefficiencies, and which batters morale. The safety of the children is threatened and the value of their time and that of their parents is disregarded. And the bus drivers are ill treated.

Woodburn Elementary releases at 3:35. Sometimes the buses are a half hour late or more. The crossing guard can’t leave until 4:15 or later. Scheduling has been a mess.

It seems that the bus drivers need to publicize their numerous serious grievances through a blog, at the very least, perhaps with anonymity because they are always under threat of being fired, unlike Woodburn parents on this blog. Even so, it’s tough to get the word out.

A constant stream of information direct to the public can help clarify some of what is going on: a serious labor and management conflict over various problems, a conflict that shows no signs of going away. Read the rest of this entry »

SITING AND BUILDING IT TO THE LETTER

What’s the saying, useful trope?

Never believe anything until it is officially denied.

Monongalia County Superintendent of Schools, Frank Devono:

“We’ve done everything to the letter throughout the whole process, and we’re confident that any judge will see that.” -Dominion Post, November 19, 2010.

To the Letter!

What letter would that be?

G? For Green, that is, Gangrene process and school?

W? For Wrong, again?

M? For Misinformation?

F? For Failure to provide accurate information to the public throughout the course of the project?

Yes, the letter is clear. Overall, Devono and the BOE have “done everything to the letter” – assuming the letter is G, W, M, or F.

Letters as Gangrene Weapons of Mass Failure.

Mon BOE: Gangrenous and Wrong, Misinforming and Failing the public and the students.

LOOKING TO A HEARING

“Tony Christini awaits Judge Susan Tucker’s arrival, while petitioners against the school on the Mileground Road sit in the audience.” -Ron Rittenhouse, Dominion Post

Factual Background I – Health and Safety Violations

The overwhelming evidence points to the conclusion that the intended WV 705 / US 119 intersection, as site for Monongalia County Board of Education’s (BOE) new consolidated “green” school, would violate state health, safety, and welfare (well-being) laws because the site is insolubly polluted by vehicle exhaust, given its proximity to high traffic congested highways. Nearly all of the 8.85 acre site to be purchased for the school (about 8 of 9 acres) is situated within 200 meters of any one, two, or three major pollution sources: the two high-traffic congested highways and their intersection. An influential, substantial, and growing body of scientific studies shows that high-traffic roads create vehicle exhaust pollution belts extending up to 300 meters or even farther (up to 450 meters) from the roadway, which cause elevated levels of serious (and potentially fatal) illnesses (including asthma, flu, bronchitis, leukemia, etc) in children residing in houses or attending schools situated up to 200 meters (or somewhat farther) from such highways. Most of the relevant studies have been conducted within the past 10 or 15 years, and on the basis of these studies, the state of California limits and bans new schools from being built within 150 meters of high traffic roads (let alone intersections which generate even more vehicle exhaust pollution than the roadways). Scientists have suggested that the school ban be considered for extension to at least 200 meters from high traffic roads (let alone from simultaneously 2 such highways plus their congested intersection). All or nearly all of the school building will be situated within 200 meters of any one, two, or three major pollution sources: the two high-traffic, congested highways and their intersection. It is likely that part of the consolidated school building, perhaps much of it, will be situated within 150 meters of the intersection of the two high-traffic congested highways or their intersection when both highways are expanded to four or five lanes and their intersection is expanded and moved directly toward the school building at the time of (or one year after) the fall 2012 scheduled opening of the consolidated school. The current schematic design drawings place the most scientifically vulnerable children (the youngest, pre-K and K) the closest to the intersection and busy roads. (Also of note, the county BOE contracted for “schematic design” work done without having title to the land for the school, which violates the BOE’s multimillion dollar contract with the School Building Authority, SBA, which explicitly bars it.) Read the rest of this entry »

OF VEHICLE EXHAUST POLLUTED INTERSECTION SCHOOL SITES

Nationwide, a mere small fraction of schools are built at such high traffic sites as the intended new consolidated “green” elementary in Morgantown.

Why?

Because such siting is putrid, irresponsible, negligent, and evidently illegal.

And approved by the Mon BOE and WVU (and negligently rubber-stamped by the state BOE and SBA).

It defies common sense.

But then, this is far from the first time that the officials have been stupendously negligent in driving West Virginians down.

Rah, rah. WVU will need more than a few good sports wins to begin to bury this stinking mess.

$3 million dollars for Asthma & Pneumonia Elementary. Bravo.

BENEATH CONTEMPT

In an utterly disgusting unanimous vote, without discussion, the WVU Board of Governors approved for sale the ever-toxic Mileground intersection site to the BOE for a school for small children.

The stupidity and brutality of this vote is remarkable, no less so for being thoroughly expected.

WVU Vice President Narvel Weese led the university’s efforts to locate the school at the unhealthy and dangerous intersection, as we have documented in detail. And WVU President Jim Clements went merrily along, in a show of leadership worthy of his ignominious predecessor, former WVU President Mike Garrison, forced to resign in disgrace after a brief term along with his Chief of Staff Craig Walker, equally implicated in the Heather Manchin Bresch degree scandal.

In other news, Judge Jennifer Bailey has been assigned to the relocated court case in Charleston, where we will seek a hearing to stop BOE purchase or development of the grotesque intersection school site.

WVU VOTE TODAY: TO PROFITEER OR TO BE RESPONSIBLE

West Virginia University Board of Governors votes today on whether or not to make the community sick by profiteering.

Approval of a nearly $3 million land sale of nearly 9 acres to the Monongalia County Board of Educaction would allow the BOE, unless stopped by a lawsuit that should not have to be prosecuted, to build an elementary school at an insolubly congested and polluted intersection (vehicle exhaust, also noise). The intersection is also prone to vehicle crashes and would be the only way in and out of the school.

Such close proximity of schools to busy highways has been scientifically shown in study after study to increase rates of illness among the school children, and to make the illnesses more severe and potentially fatal. This includes such illness and disease as asthma and pneumonia, bronchitis, wheezing and other respiratory ailments, and ear, nose, and throat complications, and possibly even cancer, and leukemia, and pulmonary diseases.

WVU Board of Governors should do what the BOE inexcusably failed to do and that is make a commonsense vote NO against the sale and use of the intersection land that can be predicted to have the contemptible effect of sickening and otherwise endangering children.

COURT HEARING TO DETERMINE FATE OF GREEN SCHOOL

Judge Susan B. Tucker will hold a hearing on Wednesday November 10th at 10:30 a.m. in the Courthouse in Courtroom 2 to decide whether or not to order an injunction against the BOE to prevent the Monongalia County School District from purchasing land from WVU at the intersection of WV 705 and US 119 on the Mileground for the green school.

The hearing is open to the public.

Troubled by the traffic, congestion, noise, and illness-inducing vehicle exhaust at the intersection site? Make your presence felt by attending the hearing to show support for an injunction to block the BOE from buying the intersection site for the green school.

Keep schools in neighborhoods. Keep schools out of traffic, and away from the diseased effects of vehicle exhaust. Children can’t learn if they are sick and unsafe. A more negligent example of siting a school is hard to imagine. Read the rest of this entry »

THE WV SCHOOL BUILDING AUTHORITY: LEADING WEST VIRGINIA IN A RACE TO THE BOTTOM

(See also The Damage Inflicted By The West Virginia School Building Authority)

Why has the West Virginia School Building Authority adopted and instituted bottom-feeder standards? Why does the SBA push schools toward 28 students per classroom in grade school?

It is widely known that, all other things equal, smaller class sizes greatly benefit students, for at least one obvious reason: fewer students allow teachers to give more attention to the various and specific needs of each student.

Is West Virginia serious about improving drop-out rates? Then the legislature should get serious about stepping in and pulling up the SBA’s anti-educational class size standards.

Maximum class size is actually state law –  see WV Code §18-5-18a. Maximum teacher-pupil ratio – rather than an SBA mandate, however the SBA is the enforcer of minimum class size, because the SBA has a policy guideline that schools must be filled to a minimum of 85 percent of capacity (which means each classroom must be at least 85 percent full, on average). If school capacity is calculated on the 28 student per class standard (the 25 student “maximum” plus the 3 extra students allowed by law, then the minimum class size is 24, on average. If a flat 25 student maximum per class standard is used to calculate school capacity, then the minimum class size is more than 21 students, on average.

21 or 24 students per class should be flashing-red-light-warning signs of overcrowding, too many students per teacher. Instead, in West Virginia, the state bureaucrats and the county superintendents and the school board members crack the whip to enforce these sizes as minimums, then they speak out of the other side of their mouths in whining and moaning about drop-out rates and “discipline” problems. Instead they should look at the class size whip in their hands as a guilty party, and point their fingers at the state legislature and the SBA that put that anti-educational and bullying whip directly into the often all-too eager hands of the board and the superintendent.

So it is that the legislative “maximum” class sizes are pushed by the SBA’s 85 percent minimum rule into class sizes approaching minimums. In an effort to try to meet that 85 percent minimum capacity standard, too few schools get built for enrollment fluctuations and so some schools are forced to operate over capacity: the maximum sizes become too difficult for some classrooms to meet even as minimums. Thus, according to state and local records, last year in Monongalia County, North Elementary operated over capacity. And so did Suncrest Primary. And the new 2012 SBA-funded “green” school is scheduled to open 3 percent over capacity.

So when a parent notes in passing that his daughter had 29 students in her class last year at North Elementary, no one is surprised. 19 students should be considered a lot. But by SBA standards, 19 students would be far below its anti-educational, education-on-the-cheap 85 percent of “capacity” standard. You get what you pay for. If schools only pay for lousy student-to-teacher ratios, then this will contribute to higher dropout ratios, “discipline” problems, and more poorly educated students. It will also continue to drive people into fields other than teaching. Read the rest of this entry »

MUCH MONEY ILL SPENT

Monongalia County Board of Education intends to buy (upon WVU Board of Governors’ approval, November 12th) the 8.85 acre 705/119 Mileground intersection consolidated green school site from WVU for $2,876,250.00.

Throw in another $650,000.00 or so to fill in the seven-foot-high mine voids sprawling fifty feet beneath the building location.

Then plan for the brutal costs and liability risks of siting an elementary school within illness-inducing vehicle-exhaust, on mine voids, at one of greater Morgantown’s most congested high traffic and accident-prone intersections. Read the rest of this entry »

ARE POLLUTED WITH IGNORANCE AND NEGLECT

Last night at the school board meeting, the architect hired by the board, Ted Shriver, presented 2 new bubble depictions for the possible configuration of the green school. The slightly shifted building (there could only be a slight shift given space constraints) was the first of a number of items one might note.

And then came the staggering comment from President Barbara Parsons. She wondered during board-hired architect Shriver’s presentation if the impending roundabout was actually going to be located as he depicted it, far removed from the current intersection, placed up in the field much closer to the intended new consolidated “green” school. For a moment Shriver hesitated, before replying that he had merely overlain the WV Division of Highway design for the impending intersection shift. In other words, yes, the intersection is set to be right up close to the school. This has been known since April, six months ago.

Architect Shriver might have added that he had rather accurately hand-drawn that intersection shift and presented it to the board during the June 8th special meeting, when Barbara Parsons and the rest of the board had reaffirmed their initial (March) approval of the site. He might have added that two of the five school board members (one including the BOE Vice-President) are two of the four MPO officers (one including the MPO President) who coordinated the WVDOH meeting in Morgantown in April where the DOH/MPO presented the same intersection shift and road expansion design diagrams.

Is the intersection really going to be there? the Board President asked.

This is what is happening in Monongalia County Schools. The Superintendent recommends a site that he obviously should not recommend for various health, traffic, pollution, education, and community reasons. And the BOE either callously or carelessly rubber stamps it. Is the intersection really going to be there? No, the DOH and the MPO have just been doodling these many months. And the public has raised an outcry this whole long time, over the dire fate of their children, about sheer figments of their imagination!

Well now you know President Parsons what you should have known all along. And you voted anyway last night to send a statement of intent to WVU for the BOE to purchase that dirty, sickening, and potentially deadly land there. How close to air poison is too close, President Parsons? As Education Director at Monongalia General Hospital you should know better. The whole board, and its superintendent, should know better.

Also of note is that the BOE intends to purchase more acreage at the site than it has ever previously publicly discussed buying. Read the rest of this entry »

WHO VOTED TO MAKE CHILDREN SICK BY BUILDING A SCHOOL IN TRAFFIC POLLUTION?

Childhood leukemia, anyone? See the comprehensive study on traffic pollution below. The intended new consolidated elementary “green” school at the intersection of the congested, high traffic thruways WV 705 & US 119 is sick, sick, sick.

Also see: Asthma Elementary and No Health and Safety and The Road to Charleston and Damaging Children for Life.
Read the rest of this entry »

THE SBA OPERATING AGAINST PUBLIC WILL AND GOOD SENSE

(See also: The SBA: Institutionalizing Crap)

The creation of the West Virginia state School Building Authority (SBA) about two decades ago has taken power away from the people. The SBA makes an end run around the public by way of the state and federal money it gives out, often for unpopular school closing and consolidation projects, such as the new consolidated “green” elementary school slated for the WV 705 & US 119 intersection in Morgantown. Such SBA projects are pushed by local officials who thereby satisfy local and state monied interests and powers, including the SBA itself, of which the state Governor is President. Accommodating the dictates of the SBA advances careers.

The SBA often forces school districts to take care of multiple issues in one fell swoop (consolidation): no vote required, the public taken out of the process. Voters are often reasonably unwilling to vote for local bonds to close and consolidate neighborhood schools rather than to rebuild them, or to fix them. The SBA makes the public superfluous. For a school district who has a marginally competent or lousy, unpopular, untrustworthy superintendent who therefore cannot or will not attempt to get a bond passed for even worthy projects, the state SBA can simply provide the money desired by local developers and unpopular and negligent administrators and at least appear to be addressing real problems. The power to decide what schools go where and when was taken away from the public by the creation of the SBA. By partnering implicitly or explicitly with a local administrator and an impotent or complicit or negligent school board, the SBA simply ignores public will and knowledge and keeps money circulating at public expense but against public will, and often against best knowledge and practices.

For such unpopular and destructive maneuvering, the ideal leader becomes a  local smooth talker to try to pretty up the proceedings, or even to try to dupe the local populace. Securing SBA state funds naturally gets the local administrator in good with local land and business barons and state big shots. It’s sick; it’s systemic, undemocratic, corrupting.

As far back as her vital 1997 study, “An Economical, Thorough, and Efficient School System: The West Virginia School Building Authority “Economy of Scale” Numbers,” West Virginia attorney and professor Deirdre Purdy explained the degraded state of affairs brought on by the creation of the SBA: Read the rest of this entry »

OPPOSING THE MILEGROUND SITE

Via WAJR:

The proposed green school that would be built on the mileground has become an issue in the [school board] race, with [Harry] Bertrum and [Junior] Taylor wanting to slow the project down and reconsider the location of the new school.

“I’ve had so many people from all over the county, a majority of people that don’t want it built there. Why are we building something that there is no public mandate for?” wonders Taylor. … Read the rest of this entry »

A FOUR-YEAR TICKET TO TYRANNY?

In the recent interview of school board candidates by the Dominion Post, candidate Mike Kelly says, “we have involved everybody” in the decision to site the new green elementary school.

He could not be more wrong. The people the school board involved the least were those the most affected, aside from the schoolchildren: the parents and the general public.

Mon Schools never sent out a notice about school closing and consolidation individually to the parents (through their children in the schools) until 2.5 months after a new school site had been decided on by the board. The only reason they even sent out a notice at that point (the second to last day of school) was due to the pressure from parents who had themselves prepared a note to send out about the upcoming Woodburn and Easton Closure hearings.

So, Mike Kelly, if you really do want to “involve everybody” – especially those most affected – you need to send out announcements and explanations to each individual parent through the schools in a timely manner. This is commonly done for all sorts of school matters large and small. So why was it not done and done repeatedly in this monumental instance? Are there larger decisions made about schools than their possible closure and consolidation? Board members are not elected to proceed like dictators and tyrants, they are elected to involve and be responsive to the public.

Furthermore, it is completely inappropriate to keep the school district’s preferred site for the new school secret for months, then to finally reveal it publicly only to vote to confirm it as the new site 7 days later. Wow, the public had a whole 7 days to jump right in there and examine the site and give their opinion which the school board clearly values oh so much. Read the rest of this entry »

MIKE KELLY CONDEMNS THE FACTS

In conversation with Dominion Post editors, school board candidate Mike Kelly falsely claims “homes would have to be condemned” around the Woodburn schoolgrounds to build a new school there. That was the outrageous option outlined by the school board’s architect, which would have condemned many homes (taking them by eminent domain). The Woodburn group’s plan condemns zero homes and would purchase two or three from willing sellers only.

Board candidate Junior Taylor is right to reject the grotesque Mileground site for the new elementary school. He points to the obvious mistrust and contention generated by the board, the irresponsible haste (to put it politely and mildly) of the board, the secrecy, the isolated decision-making and the overall inappropriate decision to locate a school in the polluted middle of high traffic and congestion.

Junior Taylor has otherwise had first-hand experience with Mon Schools administration’s callousness and incompetence in having to fight hard for the appropriate best education for his child.

Junior Taylor is by far the best choice for school board on the ballot this November.

MARK MANCHIN AND WV SCHOOL BUILDING AUTHORITY IN TROUBLE USING SBA MONEY

Today the Charleston Daily Mail reports again on another April SBA grant in controversy:

[SBA Director Mark Manchin] said Kanawha [Board of Education] is close to obtaining property for [a new SBA grant] school with just more than two weeks left before the deadline [of November 1st stipulated by the SBA]. … The building authority granted the money to the district in April, but said the award would be withdrawn if the county hadn’t lined up property for the new school by Nov. 1. … Manchin said the school system didn’t have to own the property by that deadline, he just “needed to see some movement” from the county by then. “That’s not the drop-dead date, if you will,” he said. … Manchin said the School Building Authority had to impose deadlines on the funding because it came from federal stimulus money, which also came with strict deadlines for the authority. Kanawha school officials would not disclose the location of the new property Tuesday.

Sound familiar? Mon Schools kept its SBA grant green school site secret until mid-March, too late for the WV Division of Highways to incorporate into its plans for the DoH public hearing in April about the 705/119 Mileground road expansion. Read the rest of this entry »

AND SO IS THE SUPERINTENDENT

It has been said before and needs to be said again: the Monongalia County School Board and the Superintendent in their professional school capacities are awful. Such a great example for the schoolchildren of the county.

How so?

See the details throughout this site.

And now on OPEB – Other Post-Employment Benefits.

The most recent example of their awfulness is the irrationality and vacuity by which Mon Schools expressed its decision to not join a lawsuit against the state which has moved to shove outrageous health care costs down the county’s throat, an aggressive and abusive move by the state – one made by appointees of the Governor – that likely doubles as an effort to strong-arm the county (and all the counties) into further subservience to whatever else the state dictates and has tried to dictate in the past.

Jim Bissett reports in the Dominion Post that the state Public Employees Insurance Agency is forcing each county in West Virginia to pay for the state mandated Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB), which would, Mon School Board President Parsons notes, “break the county” and all the other public schools in the state, forcing them into bankruptcy and state takeover or at best to severely strip the schools of resources, offerings, benefits, facilities. Yet the board voted not to join again with the other counties, in a lawsuit against the state, in appealing a court ruling against them on the matter.

“It would be [like] suing your mother,” board member Mike Kelly said absurdly. The mother who would “break” you? Read the rest of this entry »

LESTER LEMASTERS – MONONGALIA COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA

Thomas Built Buses award:

Every day, all over the US and Canada, school bus drivers make a difference in the lives of children. So, in 2006, as a way to recognize those drivers, Thomas Built Buses established the “Children’s Choice School Bus Driver of the Year” essay contest.

The contest invites children across the North America to nominate their favorite school bus driver and thank them for their dedicated service. Now in its fifth year, the national essay contest has become a new Thomas Built tradition.

And the 2010 Children’s Choice Drivers of the Year are:

WINNER

DRIVER – LESTER LEMASTERS
NOMINATING CHILD – CHANCELLOR

Download entry
Read the rest of this entry »

MON SCHOOLS AND THE WV SBA FAIL TO INFORM THE PUBLIC THAT THE GREEN SCHOOL WOULD BE OVERCROWDED FROM THE START

On Mon Schools’ green school grant application to the WV School Building Authority (SBA Director Mark Manchin, the appointed cousin of SBA President Joe Manchin), under the section titled, “ADEQUATE SPACE FOR PROJECTED STUDENT ENROLLMENT,” Mon Schools states:

“There is adequate space for enrollment projections. Once this facility [green school] is completed [Fall 2012], redistricting will occur in the North and Cheat Lake Elementary areas due to overcrowding.”

First, as we have noted, contrary to the assertion above, which it takes an investigative research project to discover, Mon Schools continues to deny in public, either brazenly or ignorantly, that redistricting is “on the table” and connected to the green school.

Second, there is not “adequate space” in the Easton/Woodburn consolidated green school for the projected combined enrollments of Easton Elementary and Woodburn Elementary if the school is to be built for 450 students, which the grant is written for and which Mon Schools insists it “will be built to house.” Even before this fall’s boom in elementary school enrollment in Morgantown, the combined projected enrollment of Easton and Woodburn for 2012, the year the consolidated green school is to open, is 103 percent of green school capacity, with enrollment projected to climb nearly every year thereafter, again even before the recent enrollment boom, which was in all likelihood brought on by the ongoing hard economic times, as people flock to the city and fewer families can afford private school.

Mon Schools even includes the following chart in its summer request to the state Board of Education for two amendments to its Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan (one amendment to close Woodburn and Easton schools and the other amendment to build the new consolidated green school ostensibly for the Woodburn and Easton student bodies):

Read the rest of this entry »

MON SCHOOLS AND THE WV SBA HAVE KNOWN OF THE WRONGFUL NATURE OF THE SITE ALL ALONG

From Mon Schools’ green school grant application to the WV School Building Authority (SBA Director Mark Manchin, the appointed cousin of SBA President Joe Manchin):

“COMPLIANCE WITH SBA REQUIREMENTS, PROPOSED NEW PROJECT (GREEN ELEMENTARY): Briefly describe how this project affects the following:”

Mon Schools statement in part:

“If implemented, this project [new green elementary school] will provide students, faculty, and staff with a healthy, safe and pleasant environment in which to work and learn. … Also, in our existing facilities, it is not possible to have a healthy environment because of the lack of new outside air being injected into the facility. This project would allow for ventilation to all areas of the facility…”

In fact, what will be “injected” and “ventilated” throughout the building is the toxic and polluted air from the adjacent high traffic roads and congested intersection. That asthma-inducing brew will be “injected into the facility” and “ventilated to all areas” of it. Furthermore, increased and more severe attacks of asthma may be the least of the side effects.

That’s why California bans schools within 150 meters of high traffic roads. Presumably that’s why WV Department of Education Policy 6200 bans new schools from being sited near “arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion,” as well as for traffic crash safety risk reasons.

When Mon Schools wrote and sent off the green school grant application that contains the statements above, it knew the two major congested highways were located along two sides of the site of course, very close and flanking (WV 705 & US 119), and that both highways were set to expand – which should have disqualified the school site in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »

MON SCHOOLS PLEADS THE 5th

MON SCHOOLS & WVU SAY, TO INTERSECTION HELL WITH YOU!

The new “green” elementary school to be sited at the soon to be four or five lane intersection of WV 705 and US 119 should henceforth be known as Asinine Elementary, because:

• Asinine Elementary would be the first school in the county to sit at one of the most dangerous intersections for crashes, and it would be sited along the most crash-prone road (WV 705), and within its pollution belt. You can thank Mon Schools and WVU for working secretly and against the public to shove the school in there.
• Children with asthma will not be able to attend Asinine Elementary, that is, they should not attend. Recent research shows asthmatic children are at greater risk for more asthma attacks and attacks of greater severity when exposed to near-highway road pollution, such as the width of the highway pollution belt within which Asinine Elementary would be built. You can thank Mon Schools and WVU for working secretly and against the public to shove the school in there.
• Children without asthma are more likely to get asthma when exposed at length to near-highway road pollution. So if your child does not have asthma before entering Asinine Elementary but comes down with it sometime thereafter, you might wish to contact a lawyer to seek recompense for life-long damages or at least send the medical bills to Mon Schools, if not to WVU. You can thank Mon Schools and WVU for working secretly and against the public to shove the school in there. Read the rest of this entry »

WHY ARE CITIES, TOWNS, AND NEIGHBORHOODS ACROSS MONONGALIA COUNTY BEING GUTTED OF THEIR SCHOOLS?

In 1998, Monongalia County had 19 elementary schools. Since then, enrollment has climbed while the number of schools has been cut to 15 by  2005,  to 11 by 2010, to be 10 by 2012. And the changing situation is more extreme than even those figures show, because the two most recent elementary schools, built in 2006, were consolidations both built outside of any community or population center. One was built near an industrial park (that closed the school at least once due to fire and smoke) and the other was built on a strip mine become coal ash dump become treeless “park”. (The EPA this past year has considered classifying coal ash as hazardous waste.) Meanwhile, the 2012 consolidated elementary school (the “green” school) is slated to be built in another exceptionally unfit, strangely remote, community isolated, polluted and congested location. Additionally the new high school, which opened this past year, has a campus currently under investigation by the Department of Environmental Resources for multiple hazards, and is also remote from community. These are all large, isolated, and exceptionally poorly sited schools that make for an extreme dis-integrating of schools from community and from the general public. A terrible trend for many reasons, it should be stopped (in the case of the “green” school intended for the notorious intersection of WV 705 & US 119) and otherwise reversed.

Some similarities between Monongalia County and Washington DC? Excerpt below from:

“What’s Missing in the Talk About Education Reform” by Sam Smith

Unanswered in all the noise about “education reform” is why, over the past decade, America’s establishment has become so obsessed with controlling public education, a complete reversal of two centuries of American faith in locally controlled schools. Read the rest of this entry »

BUSING WITHOUT A CLUE

Yesterday, students at Woodburn Elementary did not get on a bus until an hour after the school day ended, due to the ongoing bus scheduling problems.

And the school day now ends at Woodburn Elementary 10 minutes later than it did at the start of the year, apparently to accommodate the failed bus scheduling.

If school ends 10 minutes later now, how can it be that it does not begin ten minutes later too? Will Woodburn students end the school year weeks before the other schools because they have put in more time? Or will they remain prisoner to lousy bus planning? Read the rest of this entry »

BRAY CARY HAS A FEW CHOICE WORDS FOR MON SCHOOLS’ FOIA PROPOSAL

“BAD”

“TRICKS”

“MISGUIDED”

“SOMETHING TO HIDE”

Read the rest of this entry »

TURNING CHILDREN GREEN WITH ILLNESS FROM TRAFFIC POLLUTION

It’s good to see children at Woodburn Elementary doing environmental science experiments with WVU students in Ms. Duley’s fourth-grade class, as reported in the Dominion Post today by Jim Bissett:

“Woodburn is slated to move into the Monongalia County school district’s first-ever green school during the next two years, and [Ms. Duley] wanted students thinking about the environment and what that means for their futures. …

“Their experiment with the Alka-Seltzer and sandwich bags brought it home for a class of kids in a small town with big-city gridlock during rush hour.

“The antacid tablet [WVU graduated student Jason] Burnside dissolved in a bag partially filled with water illustrated the effects of automobile emissions on the atmosphere.”

Unfortunately, in Monongalia County, when one thinks “green school” one thinks high traffic, congestion, and gridlock.

Other scientific experiments conducted outside the classroom by highly accomplished scientists show that children in schools and/or houses near high traffic and congestion (and the green school is intended to be sited at the high traffic and congested  intersection of WV 705 and US 119 on the Mileground) are exposed to the damaging effects of vehicle exhaust, which include increased rates and risk of asthma and cancer and heart and lung diseases, also harsher asthma attacks. Not only is a different green school site legally imperative, the science below shows why it is ethically imperative that the green school site be shifted away from the 705/119 intersection to a healthy and safe place.

“Diesel exhaust is especially dangerous, containing nearly 40 hazardous pollutants…. Diesel emissions increase the severity and duration of asthma attacks…. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children’s exposure to diesel exhaust particles should be decreased and that idling of diesel vehicles in places where children live and congregate should be minimized to protect their health… Read the rest of this entry »

MONONGALIA COUNTY SCHOOLS MAKES THE NATIONAL MEDIA IN DISGRACE

The Associated Press picked up on the Dominion Post article about Monongalia County Schools’ proposal to charge onerous and surely unlawful costs for Freedom Of Information Act requests. The AP story went national. All or part of it was run in newspapers from Texas to New York and beyond, and in the USA Today. Also in Charleston and all across West Virginia.

Note to Monongalia County Schools: You don’t mess with the Freedom Of Information Act.

Just as you should not break and abuse the other laws and policies that you continue to flout in trying to build a new green elementary school at an unhealthy, dangerous, and unlawful site: the intersection of WV 705 and US 119. Little children’s lungs and breathing, it is a scientific fact, cannot cope with traffic pollution to the extent that adults or even high school students can. The high traffic, noise, congestion, and pollution from WV 705, US 119, and their intersection makes that site for a school inappropriate, unlawful, and outrageous. No school should be sited at one of Morgantown’s most dangerous intersections for crashes, and on Morgantown’s by far most dangerous road for crashes, WV 705, a preposterous and ridiculous site for any school, especially a “green” school.

There is more than one national story here, far more, in the making and long since, as far as the eye can see.

The AP story: Read the rest of this entry »

MON SCHOOLS AND THE STATE TRY TO RUN AND HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT

Who released the WV Department of Education statement on the green school? When? Where? To whom? Why? Upon whose initiative? Read the rest of this entry »

SOUND FAMILIAR?

A school Superintendent was interviewing job applications for the position of manager of a large school system. He quickly devised a test for choosing the most suitable candidate. He simply asked each applicant this question, “What is two plus two?” Read the rest of this entry »

MON BOE IN VIOLATION OF STATE POLICY AND STATE LAW

West Virginia state Code:

§18-5-13. Authority of boards generally:

Each “county board” of education is “subject to…the rules of the State Board” of Education…

These rules include “Rule number 6200 of the West Virginia Board (Handbook_On_Planning_School_Facilities).” So notes WV state Superintendent Henry Marockie in his “Superintendent Interpretation” of February 15, 1991. [link corrected] Read the rest of this entry »

BUS CRASH: WHY EVERY STUDENT NEEDS A SEAT

Read the rest of this entry »

THE ENDURING INCOMPETENCE OF MONONGALIA COUNTY SCHOOLS ADMINISTRATION

Want a community school at a good site?

Too damn bad!

Want your child to have a seat on a bus?

Too damn bad!

Want the buses to arrive on time?

Too damn bad!

Monongalia County Schools administration is incompetent and negligent, as we have documented in detail.

Teachers at Woodburn Elementary are forced to stay on bus duty a half hour longer than they should because the buses have been so poorly scheduled that they show up late. As a result, the students at Woodburn Elementary sometimes arrive home a half hour later than they ought to.

Does your child have a seat on the bus? Some children have to stand. Read the rest of this entry »

MONONGALIA COUNTY SCHOOLS PUSHING OUT THE PUBLIC

SBA PRESIDENT JOE MANCHIN AND SBA DIRECTOR MARK MANCHIN IN BLATANT VIOLATION

Why are WV Governor Joe Manchin and his cousin appointee WV SBA Director Mark Manchin violating state policy by funding a new elementary school at a hazardous site in Morgantown? Read the rest of this entry »

PARENT CALLS OUT THE SUPERINTENDENT AND SCHOOL BOARD ON THEIR TRANSGRESSIONS

A good article by the Dominion Post with an odd title, “Man: Devono should lose job: Christini argues over green school site”. “Man”? Why not, “Parent”? Read the rest of this entry »

THE ROTTEN FRUIT OF GARBAGE SCHOOL POLICY

Today, WAJR reports on the unexpected student population boom in Monongalia County Schools, several hundred new students, and that the biggest boom is in the elementary schools that form a ring around Easton and Woodburn elementaries…(“North, Cheat Lake, Brookhaven, and Mountainview” elementaries) just as we have been reporting for months now.

Yet both Easton and Woodburn elementaries are slated to not only be closed but the number of available school seats will be reduced in the process, as we have also documented and reported. Read the rest of this entry »