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By The Register-Herald
Now that Senate Majority Leader Mitch Carmichael and his minions have wrapped up their end run around all Democratic defenses and the customary manner of advancing legislation, this moment serves as proper warning to citizens that the Republican caucuses in the House and Senate have found a convenient way around whatever roadblock stands in their way.
All of those shortcomings citizens saw in their local schools and spoke of during numerous education town...
By Ryan Quinn, Charleston Gazette-Mail
The state School Building Authority is accepting public comments through noon Friday on extensive proposed policy changes.
“Nearly every section, appendix, form, and policy was amended,” SBA Executive Director David Roach wrote in a May 29 letter addressed to SBA board members, schools superintendents and...
By John Quesenberry, published in the Beckley Register-Herald
As a co-president of the Raleigh County Education Association, I feel compelled to respond to the attacks on my organization and the character of my colleagues in recent remarks by my local state senator.
While I applaud and agree wholeheartedly with Senator Rollan Roberts’ comments at the end of his recent letter calling for civility, I find that plea rings rather hollow when the letter describes us as reprehensible...
By Heather Deluca-Nestor, published in The Beckley register-Herald
I felt compelled to offer an alternative perspective to the recent article (“A call for civility in teacher unions,” July 3) by state senator Rollan Roberts that states that the “present behavior of the teacher and service personnel unions behavior has been reprehensible, vindictive, retaliatory, and hypocritical.”
Two years ago I was elected President of the Monongalia County Education Association, an 8th grade...
WV MetroNews
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Like a prizefighter slumped in the corner of the ring, West Virginia’s embattled education reform law will have to answer another bell in coming weeks.
The West Virginia Education Association announced Wednesday it intends to sue the state over the recent passage of a bill, which it says is unconstitutional while going beyond the will of the people.
“Well, we think the whole thing violates West Virginia’s Constitution,”...
By Sally Ho, The Washington Post
SEATTLE — Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch’s powerful network that’s known for influencing state policy is now targeting education issues like school choice as the movement battles a new wave of hostility from Democrats who oppose charter schools and private school vouchers that use taxpayer money.
Koch in June announced the Yes Every Kid initiative as the latest addition to his sprawling network of wealthy donors, political groups and tax...
By Jeff Jenkins, WV MetroNews
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — House of Delegates Speaker Roger Hanshaw announced Monday he’s called delegates back into special session to finish up some work that it didn’t get to last month.
The special session will resume Monday, July 22, at noon. That’s the same day state lawmakers are scheduled to be at the state capitol for monthly interim committee meetings.
House Communications Director Jared Hunt said House leadership plans...
By Brad McElhinny, WV MetroNews
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The House of Delegates has two new top leaders on the Education Committee.
Delegate Joe Ellington, who had been the chairman of Health and Human Resources, has been named the new Education Committee chairman. Ellington, 60 is a Republican from Mercer County. He is also an obstetrician-gynecologist in Princeton.
The vice-chairman is Joshua Higginbotham, R-Putnam.
Education issues have been a focus...
By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON — Both bodies of the West Virginia Legislature plan to resume the special session next week coinciding with regularly scheduled interim meetings to pass supplemental bills.
The state Senate announced Wednesday that it will resume the special session Tuesday, July 23, at noon. The House of Delegates will resume the special session Monday, July 22, at 10 a.m.
The special session was called March 9, the day...
By Jeff Jenkins, WV MetroNews
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Cabell County Schools has served 30,000 meals to students this summer and is on track for an additional 15,000 meals before school begins in about a month.
The numbers were highlighted during a ceremony Thursday in Huntington.
State Department of Education Executive Director of the Office of Child Nutrition Amanda Harrison called the number bitter-sweet.
“We’re very grateful for the work that...
By Amelia Ferrell, Charleston Gazette-Mail
There are 10,522 homeless students in West Virginia, a number so large it could fill the state’s largest high school more than five times.
Homeless students account for nearly 4 percent of all students enrolled this past school year in kindergarten through 12th grade in public schools, according to data from the West Virginia Department of Education for the 2018-19 school year.
It means that if your child is in a class of 25...
How much of a bill do lawmakers actually write?
According to an article published earlier this year jointly by USA Today, The Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity, there were nearly 10,000 bills introduced in all 50 state legislatures from 2010 through 2018 that were almost identically copied from “...