Mason school levy at risk, supporters say

Oct. 31, 1998

Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

For the first time in 50 years, Mason countians are worried their school levy is in trouble.
Green-and-yellow signs flutter from front porches in Point Pleasant, urging passers-by to vote "Yes for our School Levy." Volunteers have bustled from church meetings to phone banks to levy rallies for the past two months, trying to save the $20 million levy.
After three years of fighting over school consolidation, voters are wary of anything school-related, levy supporters fear. They flocked to the polls in May to elect a new, anti-consolidation school board, after the old board voted to close the county's high schools and build one consolidated school north of Point Pleasant.
Consolidation has split the county, but levy supporters hope it won't kill the levy Nov. 3.
"With all the frustration and hot tempers from the election and consolidation, I still think people will support the levy," said Jim Casey, a Point Pleasant lawyer and head of the Vote Yes Committee.
For the next five years, the levy would provide $4.3 million annually for salaries, textbooks, classroom equipment, construction and utilities. Everything is spelled out to ease voters' minds, school board member Shirley Gue said.
"It's much more detailed than the last levy," Gue said. "Unfortunately, a lot of the language before was rather vague. It caused a lot of questions."
Specifically, Gue said, people thought the old levy was just a clever way of raising money for consolidated schools. The new levy does set aside money for construction, but it also provides money for maintenance.
"This money will be used to support our current schools, not used toward consolidation," Gue said.
Casey, who has two elementary-age children, said people have told him different reasons they oppose the levy. Some are angry because the county might lose $14 million the state provided for consolidation, now that the new school board is in office. Others don't think the levy should include money for teachers' salaries.
"Another issue was the superintendent's pay raise," Casey said, referring to a $17,000 per year increase awarded to Superintendent Larry Parsons by the previous school board. "Even if we defeated the excess levy, he's still under contract. He's still going to get that money. And I think he's doing a pretty good job."
Without the levy, $4 million would be cut from the school system's $30 million budget. Teachers' salaries might be cut, Gue said. So could the budgets for computers, field trips and coaches' pay.
The levy won't cost taxpayers anything new, Casey said. On a $60,000 house, the levy means about $140 in taxes per year.
"It's a can of pop a day or a movie rental a week," he said. "Are our kids worth the extra $50 a month?"
If the levy fails, the school board would probably hold a special election, Gue said. That would cost taxpayers another $30,000 to $40,000.
The biggest chunk of the levy, $1.4 million, would be earmarked for buildings - $500,000 for building improvements, $200,000 for maintenance and $700,000 for utilities.
Salaries for professional, service and extracurricular personnel would take up $1.1 million a year. Almost $1 million would go toward classroom and library supplies and equipment.
The rest of the school levy would be used for textbooks, paper, office expenses, field trips, extracurricular activities and computers. The levy would also provide $90,000 a year for the county health department and $15,500 each for the county library system and the Cooperative Extension Service.
Darlena Long, a member of the library board and the levy committee, said she has never seen Mason County so concerned over a levy.
"I think it'll pass," Long said. "People just need to understand. This has nothing to do with consolidation."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, call 348-5189.

Mason consolidation plan gets OK

But parents who oppose combining three high schools vow to block proposalMarch 31, 1998

By Tara Tuckwiller
Gazette Online

POINT PLEASANT - Mason County school officials got state permission Monday to close the county's three high schools and build a new school north of Point Pleasant, but many of the 120 residents who attended a public hearing on the closings said they won't stand for it.
"Here we go again," said Hannan parent Shirley Gue, who has led an anti-consolidation group in the county for three years. "The people of Mason County have said it a hundred times, but for the record, I will say it again. We do not want one high school in Mason County."
Twenty-one parents from Gue's group, which calls itself "Mason County Kids First," filed a lawsuit against the county school board last week in Mason circuit court, seeking an injunction against the consolidated school plan. They allege that board members are violating the 1997 agreement that settled the county's last anti-consolidation lawsuit by not following certain procedures, such as updating bus schedules, before they proposed consolidation again.
Board members want to close Hannan, Wahama and Point Pleasant high schools and build a $19 million, 1,400-student consolidated school about two miles north of Point Pleasant. Residents have repeatedly stalled the county's attempts to consolidate since the state School Building Authority granted $14.4 million for a consolidated high school three years ago.
"We basically heard from the SBA today that if we don't move ahead on this project, it's a dead duck," board member Mary Beth Carlisle said at Monday night's public hearing. "We can't let the people vote on it, and we can't use the money for anything we want. That's a fallacy."
Residents who spoke at the hearing said Mason County is too big for one high school, and they would like to see at least two high schools stay open. School officials since September have been planning a regional high school that would serve 750 students from Mason and Putnam counties.
Parsons and other county officials got permission from the state School Building Authority on Monday to move their planned consolidated high school from a plot the county owns near Point Pleasant High School to a bigger plot outside town, which would cost an estimated $650,000. The authority approved the site change on the condition that the school would serve all Mason County students, Parsons said.
That would seem to rule out a regional high school, but Parsons said it is still a possibility.
"We have reason to remain optimistic about that," he said.
Cindy Ball, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she would send her daughter Jennifer to private school in Huntington before she would let the school board bus her from Hannan to a consolidated high school at Point Pleasant.
"A lot of parents in Mason County work in Huntington," Ball said. "I do, and if my daughter got sick I would be 100 miles away from her. I couldn't pick her up."
The consolidated high school could be finished within three years, Parsons said. Board members will vote on closing the three high schools at their April 7 meeting.
As for the $4 million difference between the cost of the new school and the money Mason County has in hand, Parsons said he's not sure where that will come from.
"We need to look at a variety of sources on that," he said.
If Mason County doesn't start building a consolidated school by next March, the county will have to give up the money, reapply and compete against other counties for funds again, the Authority said Monday.
Putnam County schools Superintendent Sam Sentelle said officials there will continue planning the regional high school.

Estimate for Mason school hits $27 million

Dec. 19, 1998
Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

With the deadline for a Mason County consolidated high school looming three months away, a new price estimate shows that the school will cost almost double the original $14.4 million allocated by the state.
The new estimate, prepared by ZMM Inc. architects, indicates that a 1,400-student high school north of Point Pleasant would cost $27.4 million to build today. That price includes $4.8 million worth of expenses the state School Building Authority does not traditionally fund, such as land and athletic facilities.
Opinions differ among Mason County school board members as to why the cost has increased since the consolidation plan was funded in 1996. Members also are divided over whether Mason County can somehow keep the $14.4 million, even if the county doesn't build a consolidated school.
Jo Hannah Rorrer is part of a board minority that has favored the consolidated high school. Some people in Mason County say they want to abandon the consolidation plan, keep the money anyway and use it to fix up Hannan, Wahama and Point Pleasant high schools.
Rorrer said she doesn't see how that would work.
"The contract with the School Building Authority is to build one high school," Rorrer said. "It seems to me that if we don't do that, they can take it back from us."
The cost of the school has increased because consolidation foes have been stalling the plan for years, she said. Now, the School Building Authority has started making other plans for the $14.4 million.
"It's crunch time now," Rorrer said. "I'd just hope for everybody to take a real good look at what we're about to lose, before that deadline hits."
Shirley Gue, part of the board majority that was elected on an anti-consolidation platform, said she doesn't plan to give up the $14.4 million. She doesn't plan to vote for one county high school, either.
Gue maintains that the money belongs to Mason County, not the School Building Authority. The money was part of a $33 million appropriation that Sen. Oshel Craigo, who represents Mason County, included in a budget bill after the authority failed to fund Mason County's consolidation project. The $33 million was split among Mason, Monroe, Hampshire and Jefferson counties.
"There are legal questions surrounding this money," said Gue, who was involved in anti-consolidation lawsuits before she was elected in May. "Does the SBA have the freedom to disburse this money to other counties, when it was earmarked for Mason County by the Legislature?"
Gue said she asked for the new cost estimate because she never believed the consolidated school could be built for $14.4 million.
"It was never accurate to begin with," Gue said. "I'm not an economist, but I'm sure there's no way a $14 million project could become a $27 million project within a two-year period."
Not normally, said Clacy Williams, executive director of the School Building Authority.
"With a normal inflation rate, $14.4 million might turn into $18 million," he said.
Usually, school cost estimates come in a little over budget, Williams said. The authority then works with the county to trim off a few extras. If the pared-down project still needs more money, the authority can usually come up with that.
"I think the biggest increase we've ever seen has been half a million," he said. "Not $10 million."
Mason County could probably trim some of its project costs, Rorrer said.
"You might have to go to the taxpayers for some of it. The School Building Authority might help out with some of it. You might have to do without some of the extras for a while," she said.
The important thing, she said, is to get the project started before the authority yanks the money.
"I'm not a big gambler," she said. "I want somebody to tell me what we can do if we don't do this. Something safe. Something that's not gambling with $14 million."
The School Building Authority has a short list of projects ready for the $14.4 million, Williams said. They include renovation projects in Greenbrier, Pleasants, Monongalia, Braxton, Barbour, Roane, Webster and Raleigh counties.
Also on the list are a $6.3 million middle school for Petersburg in Grant County; a $4 million intermediate school for Martinsburg in Berkeley County; and a $15 million West Wyoming County high school, which would consolidate Oceana and Baileysville high schools.
"It's our board's intention to redistribute the funds immediately," Williams said.
Whether or not the consolidated school is ever built, the new cost estimate at least allows taxpayers to know what they're getting, Gue said.
"If we were to start one high school and potentially take the county into deficit, I would want to know that," she said. "If we were not to start one high school, I would want people to know whether they could have actually had a state-of-the-art high school for $14.4 million, with no local tax increase."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, call 348-5189.

Election may mean consolidation reversal

Election may mean consolidation reversal
May 13, 1998

By Ken Ward Jr.
GAZETTE ONLINE

Anti-consolidation candidates trounced incumbents in the Mason County school board race Tuesday night, perhaps paving the way to reverse a move to create one high school for the entire county.
Challengers and leading consolidation opponents Shirley Gue of Ashton and Peggy Huff of New Haven led the ticket in a field of 15 candidates, with 3,379 and 3,312 votes, respectively.
With all 38 precincts reporting, another challenger, Jo Hannah Rorrer of Point Pleasant, came in a distant third with 1,371 votes to capture the third open seat.
Huff and Gue ran a "Vote for Two, Huff and Gue" campaign against the consolidation and incumbent consolidation proponents Donna M. Thompson and Mary Beth Carlisle.
"I think the county has spoken," Gue said from Point Pleasant. "We're going to say a prayer and then stop one high school."
Thompson received just 844 votes and Carlisle, 446. Another incumbent, J. David Morgan, received 1,027 votes. Morgan had a mixed voting record on consolidation, but voted against it in the end.
School consolidation opponents targeted Carlisle and Thompson for defeat after they voted in favor of combining Point Pleasant, Wahama and Hannan high schools into one facility.
One of the two incumbents not up for re-election this year voted against the consolidation. So with a victory by Gue and Huff, they could attempt to reverse the move.
"They do not want just one high school in Mason County," she said. "And they knew if they elected us they wouldn't have just one high school in Mason County."
Parents fighting the consolidation plan have halted the project, at least temporarily, with a suit filed in Mason Circuit Court.
Gue said she would like to put the consolidation issue on the ballot in the fall and allow the people of Mason County to vote on it. She thinks it would be defeated easily.
"There's no way one high school can serve all the students of our county," Gue said. "Our county is way too large and an hour or an hour and a half bus ride is too much."
Among other school board candidates, Paul James Doeffinger received 1,282 votes; Bob Drain, 979; Tom Sauer, 643; Donald E. Greene Jr., 531; Michael Ellswroth Whalen, 416; Rich Tench, 332; and Frankie Chapman, 227.
In other Mason County races, Circuit Clerk Bill Withers led the Democratic primary with 2,074 votes. Sherry Clatworthy received 374 and Shelly D. Mayes, 248.
Republican candidate Patty Lee was unopposed.
Incumbent County Commissioner Phyllis Ashley Arthur defeated two challengers in the Democratic primary. Arthur received 1,664 votes. Challenger Olston O. "Nick" Wright received 1,370 and Ben Roush Jr., 708.
James H. Lewis led the GOP primary with 972 votes. Gene O. Haer received 749 votes and Freddie Green, 736.
County Clerk Diana Cromley easily held off a challenge in the Democratic primary from Harry "Moke" Simpkins. Cromley received 2,485 votes and Simpkins, 1,180 votes. Republican Annette Boyles was unopposed.

Consolidation Children pay the price

Editorial
the Charleston Gazette ONLINE

July 23, 1998

Consolidation

Children pay the price

THE STATE School Building Authority has been doling out millions of dollars for school consolidations on the premise that bigger schools offer better and more efficient education for children.


The Gazette has generally supported consolidation over the years, but the SBA's single-minded drive for large schools that meet "economies of scale" discriminates against the needs of children in large, sparsely populated, rural counties.
 
Unfortunately, the state Supreme Court did not see it that way. Justices overturned a decision by Kanawha Circuit Judge Tod Kaufman that could have forced the SBA to reconsider its priorities.


As a result, the closure of Circleville High School in Pendleton County and the busing of its students to a new school in Franklin will proceed.


That means some students will be on buses three hours a day on twisting, treacherous roads over North Mountain. That's good for their education?


Meanwhile, across the nation, education experts are coming to the conclusion that smaller schools are better.


Arthur Foresta, who earned accolades for his work in New York City's troubled school system, told a meeting of editorial writers at a Hechinger Institute seminar at Columbia University that smaller schools create a more caring teaching environment.


"Kids fall through the cracks at larger schools," he said.


Smaller schools are better able to encourage parental involvement, which is a key factor in learning and educational success. What kind of parental involvement can the new Pendleton school expect, especially from those parents who live an hour and a half away?


Research is also showing that smaller schools are especially beneficial for low-income students, who tend to perform worse at large, consolidated schools.


The SBA maintains that larger high schools save money, making enhanced curricula available. But that's a dubious assertion in large, rural counties where transportation costs eat up potential savings.


Deirdre Purdy, an expert witness in the Pendleton case, noted in a Gazette commentary last year that 15 counties consolidated schools in 1990 - and nine of them had budget deficits in 1995. Economies of scale didn't save them from running into the red.


The SBA refuses to fund schools that don't meet a threshold of 200 students per grade level - unless, as in Franklin, the school will serve an entire county.


The authority apparently got that magic number from some studies saying the ideal high school has 600 to 900 students. But many other studies dispute this conclusion. And the authority abandoned research it began to determine whether consolidation produces any financial savings.


Again, mergers are often beneficial, especially in urban counties. But SBA members should be smart enough to realize that there is no blanket solution for a rural state like West Virginia.


What works well in Charleston may be disastrous in mountainous Pendleton

School panel calls for local meetings

School panel calls for local meetings
To gauge support for building projectsJune 30, 1998

Gazette Online

By Eric Eyre
STAFF WRITER

The state School Building Authority will require county school districts to hold forums with community residents to gauge support for school building projects.
The authority hopes that public input may fend off future lawsuits over school closings and consolidations.
"They must take their plan to the community and talk about it," authority Director Clacy Williams said at a Monday meeting. "We want to try to solve problems before they become aggravations."
Such "aggravations" have popped up most recently in Mason County, where the School Building Authority has allocated more than $14 million for a consolidated high school in Point Pleasant. A judge put those plans on hold, however, after consolidation opponents filed suit.
The authority also is appealing a Kanawha Circuit judge's ruling that blocked a plan to consolidate two high schools in Pendleton County.
Parents oppose the plan to close Circleville High School and bus its students to a renovated Franklin High School. The authority gave the county more than $7 million in 1995 for that renovation and expansion.
During the next year and a half, county school boards throughout the state will develop 10-year plans for improving their school buildings. The School Building Authority gives each county $20,000 for the studies.
Under the new authority guidelines, school districts must hold at least two public forums to discuss their building plans, which may include school closings.
"The purpose is to let the public be part of the planning process," Williams said. "The public is going to become educated and informed."
Under the current rules, county districts must hold a public hearing - but only after they have developed their building plans.
The new guidelines will help the agency determine whether community residents support projects when school boards submit them for funding.

To contact staff writer Eric Eyre, call 348-5194.

Consolidation Just the facts, ma'am

Gazette Online

Aug. 26, 1998

Consolidation
Just the facts, ma'am

IN their single-minded defense of consolidation, both state Schools Superintendent Hank Marockie and Charleston Daily Mail editorial writers are ignoring the facts.

A recent Daily Mail editorial was especially egregious. It said: "Franklin High is 17 miles away. Yet when half the former Circleville students sign up for a school 40 miles away in Grant County rather than attend Franklin High, one wonders if this is just a football rivalry carried to extremes."
That statement insults parents who went to the state Supreme Court in their effort to keep the Circleville school open, and it ignores the geography of the area.
Actually, the ride to Grant County is shorter - and safer - for many students living on the far side of North Mountain, which separates the two halves of Pendleton County.
Some of these students endured long rides to reach Circleville. Most of the 17-mile ride over tortuous mountain roads to Franklin is an add-on. To them, Grant County is nearer.
This is not about football rivalry; it's about students forced to spend three hours a day on a bus on dangerous roads.
Marockie is just as loose with facts. He claims that students do better and have more opportunities in large, consolidated high schools. But more and more academic research shows that students - especially students from poorer families - do better academically in smaller schools. They are more involved, and their parents are more involved, than when they attend large, distant schools. Truancy and dropout rates are lower.
Marockie also says that the state can't afford not to consolidate. But no one has ever shown that consolidation leads to any cost savings. The state School Building Authority abandoned a study on that issue.
Finally, Marockie pointed to Roane County as a consolidation success story. He ignores, however, that Roane County is less mountainous than Pendleton, has about twice the population in a smaller geographic area, and has a better network of roads.
The Gazette has long supported consolidation. We recognize many of the benefits of bigger schools. But it is not a one-size-fits-all solution, especially in a state with the terrain and population patterns of West Virginia.
Consolidation can be a wonderful thing in one county, yet be unwise in another. Pendleton is a prime example.
The protesting Pendleton parents asked only for some consideration of the special circumstances their children face: sparse population, dangerous roads, mountainous terrain. They got no such consideration. And now they have been accused of opposing consolidation because of a schoolboy sport.
That's really sad.

Bigger not better, consolidation foes say

Gazette Online

Bigger not better, consolidation foes say
Aug. 23, 1998

When the question is whether to consolidate junior high and high schools, bigger is better, says West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Hank Marockie.

By Randy Coleman
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shirley Gue believes she's stood on about every soapbox in Mason County the past few years, and her sermon has never varied. Bigger is not always better, she preaches.
Gue is a newly elected member of the Mason County school board and she won her seat with a one-issue campaign: Stop the proposed school consolidation in Mason County.
But West Virginia Superintendent of Schools Hank Marockie disagrees. He says when the question is whether to consolidate junior high and high schools, bigger is definitely better. Marockie says you have to consider the achievements, the course offerings and the preparations for higher education.
"Smaller schools just don't have the resources bigger schools have," Marockie said.
The battles over consolidation in Mason and Pendleton counties have focused attention on a growing trend in West Virginia.
There have been 254 school closures since 1989, according to School Building Authority figures. Some were the result of consolidations, others were due to declining enrollment or outdated facilities.
Enrollment in West Virginia schools dropped from 401,882 in 1970 to 323,762 in 1990, then even further to 301,314 during the 1997-98 school year.
Twenty-eight counties have been through school closures or consolidation projects since 1989. Of West Virginia's 55 counties, 27 have a single consolidated high school. Several other school districts are considering consolidations.
Marockie does not deny that school consolidations often create chaos. But he says neither the arguments nor the intensity of the opposition against consolidation has changed in 30 years. Mason County is not unique, he said.
Opponents to consolidation have several objections. But two common arguments are that closure of a school can destroy a community and the opening of a consolidated school creates transportation headaches.
"It's the same arguments. People don't like to lose their communities," Marockie said.
The Mason County Board of Education had proposed merging Wahama, Point Pleasant and Hannon high schools into one central, consolidated school in the county seat of Point Pleasant. Since Wahama and Hannon are grades 7-12 schools, the plan also called for consolidating the county's middle schools into a separate middle school, also in Point Pleasant.
Gue told voters she would fight the consolidation to the bitter end, and she won by a landslide.
"I think it's pretty obvious the people here have spoken on how they feel about making one high school. They just don't want it," Gue said.
So on July 1, Gue and another newly elected board member took over, giving consolidation opponents a majority. They intend to stop the consolidation, Gue said, even though it will cost the district $14 million in state aid to help not only with the new school but in upgrading existing schools.
"I'd be crazy not to want the $14 million, and I'm not crazy," she said. "But there are some prices not worth paying."
Marockie insists the changing landscape brings virtually no complaints in the end.
"Look at the new Roane County High School. That's a good example of why it is a good idea for schools to consolidate," Marockie said.
"Roane County's one consolidated high school offers students a far better opportunity for secondary education than the two community high schools did before."
Walton and Spencer high schools consolidated in 1994 to form Roane County High. According to Roane County administrators, Walton High had offered its students 49.5 courses and Spencer 73. Roane County High School offers 117 different classes.
Consolidations are often proposed so that schools might achieve guidelines recommended by West Virginia's School Building Authority. Those guidelines include:
Elementary schools with a minimum enrollment of 300 students in grades 1-6 or a minimum of two classes of at least 22 students per grade level.
Middle or junior high schools with an average of 150 students per grade level.
High schools with a minimum enrollment of 200 students per grade level.
Geographic and other considerations may require those numbers to be altered for individual school systems.
Not everyone is convinced. The fight goes on in Pendleton County, where the state Supreme Court approved a plan last month to consolidate two high schools.
A group of parents opposed merging about 130 middle and high school students from Circleville into Franklin High School, which has about 520 students. The plan called for the closing of the existing Circleville School, which had kindergarten through grade 12, and the opening of a new elementary school in Circleville.
Circleville parents oppose the merger because it would require some students to be on a bus up to three hours a day. The bus from Circleville to Franklin rides over North Mountain, one of West Virginia's highest. The trip is dangerous and would prevent the Circleville students from participating in extracurricular activities, parents say.
More than 50 students who would have gone to Circleville High have now enrolled in neighboring Grant County. More are expected to do the same. A 40-plus-mile trip along a river valley to Petersburg awaits most of them.
Despite the questions that invariably arise with school consolidations, Marockie says the Supreme Court opinion in the Pendleton County case indicates the court understands West Virginia cannot afford a top-quality high school in every community that wants one.
The court decision supports the mission where the state is going, Marockie said.
"It supports the future for the development of schools. ... I think it has a very far-reaching impact," Marockie said. "We can now move forward with our programs."
But the arguments against consolidation persist:
Consolidated schools destroy local communities.
"Why would we want our children to get on a bus to ride two hours to a central school," Gue said.
"Our communities are strong, and our people love the communities and the schools. If the schools had lousy test scores and weren't successful, that would be another matter. But our schools are good schools."
Moving students to larger schools damages the self-esteem of low-income students and hurts their chances for academic success.
"A growing number of studies suggest that equally poor kids attending large and small schools can learn more in small schools," said Athens, Ohio, researcher Craig Howley.
Howley says he has studied school consolidations in California and West Virginia.
The one constant is that affluent children often thrive in larger schools, but students from poor families do not fare well.
Consolidating schools creates long bus rides for students, often as long as two hours one way.
"It's not my place to be pro or con when it comes to consolidations. My role is merely to review documentation that would affect consolidations," said Wayne Clutter, the state's director of school transportation and facilities.
"But there is no bigger misconception in this state than the 'quote' two-hour bus ride. You always hear about two-hour bus rides to school. But two-hour bus rides don't exist in West Virginia."
Clutter says the state has transportation guidelines it considers when a consolidation is proposed. Elementary school students should not be on a bus more than 30 minutes and middle schoolers not more than 45 minutes. High school students should not travel more than an hour, Clutter said.
More than 97 percent of West Virginia's students fall within those parameters, he said.
Bigger schools are no longer safe.
"The more people you put together, the less control you have. A big school has become a dangerous place, and we don't want that for our children," said Harts High School teacher Gwen Rainey.
School officials in both counties have proposed sending Harts students from Lincoln County to a consolidated high school in Chapmanville, Logan County, and Rainey is fighting the effort.
Marockie says he understands communities' concerns about losing their individuality.
But he adds that with every lost school, a new sense of community emerges.
"Take the bus rides, for example. When you get students from one community or neighborhood on a bus together, they get a social environment that they wouldn't ordinarily get," Marockie said.
"But what people forget is the issue is not transportation. The issue is student achievement. It's better to be on the bus an extra 15 minutes to get the advantages you can get from a bigger school."
But he adds that consolidating schools is progress. Marockie says in 1932 West Virginia had 400 school districts. An act of the 1933 Legislature created 55 school districts with five-member boards and a superintendent.
Since that time, Marockie says, the number of schools has gradually been pared down.
State officials insist that all school consolidations are up to individual systems.
"We can't look at anything a county board doesn't bring to us. We have no authority whatsoever," said Clacy Williams, executive director of the School Building Authority.
"But when a project comes to us, it's considered for funding. We evaluate the projects individually. We look at a county's structures, their fire hazards. We look at individual conditions of the buildings. Then we decide how to go forward in terms of state dollars."
Williams said, "But I have to say again, we don't go forward until a county wants to go forward."

Putnam parents blast school consolidation proposal

Gazette Online

Putnam parents blast school consolidation proposal
June 6, 1999

By Tara TuckwillerSUNDAY GAZETTE-MAIL
Dishing up pizzas at Angaleno's Restaurant, Sherry Torman sees dozens of customers every day who remember the last time they talked about shutting down Buffalo High School.
They remember how the late Mr. Hulbert gave the land to the county 50 years ago, with the promise that there would always be a school there. They remember the speeches and pleas they made in 1992, when the school board almost closed the aging little school.
About 2,000 of them have signed Torman's petitions. She's starting the battle against consolidation early this time.
"There's going to be a fight on their hands," she vowed.
The anti-consolidation push has united groups of parents from Buffalo to Poca, although other parents in the area argue in favor of consolidation.
It's only a few weeks old, coming after a recent public meeting of Putnam County's school planning committee known as Vision 20/20.
Vision 20/20 started three years ago. The school board asked a group of parents, teachers and community members to find out what people in Putnam County want in the way of school buildings.
As recently as October, Vision 20/20 said don't consolidate - just fix up what we've got. But now, Vision 20/20 is asking people if maybe they wouldn't like to consolidate Buffalo and Poca high schools into one new high school at Eleanor or Red House.
"They're saying consolidation means technology, better facilities. I think it's a lie," said Terry Foster, who is leading an anti-consolidation campaign in the Poca area.
Poca just lost its biggest employer when a Rite Aid warehouse announced it was pulling out with its 600 jobs.
The high school's enrollment has dropped in recent years to fewer than 600, although elementary and middle-school enrollments have gone up.
Buffalo, by contrast, is home to Putnam County's new Toyota engine plant. County planners expect the area's population to explode by 70 percent in the next 20 years.
Becky Raynes, an Eleanor native and Vision 20/20 member, said she doubts that.
"I don't see that happening," said Raynes, who has put three of her children through 300-student Buffalo High. "There's just not any property. It's all tied up in industrial property. There's some land out Eighteen Mile Creek and places like that, but it's not flat like in [Teays Valley]."
Raynes used to be anti-consolidation, too - until her children started college.
"It didn't really hold them back in college, that they'd gone to Buffalo," she said. "But there were classes they wanted to take in high school, and they just weren't offered. If the school was just a little bit bigger ..."
Raynes favors building a new high school between Poca and Buffalo. According to Vision 20/20 statistics, so do half the people they've surveyed.
The other half wants to keep all four of the county's high schools. Raynes said she imagines Vision 20/20 will probably wind up recommending that.
"I have a feeling that's the way it's going to be," she said. "If so, I won't move. My other three will graduate from Buffalo, too."
No matter what Vision 20/20 recommends, it will be a while before the Putnam school board does anything, according to board member Joe Starcher.
"The board won't make a decision to run a huge bond just because Vision 20/20 says so," Starcher said.
Whether Putnam County consolidates or fixes up all of its schools, Vision 20/20 has estimated the cost at $80 million.
Without consolidation, the state School Building Authority probably won't provide much of that money. So county voters would have to approve a multimillion-dollar bond issue.
Even so, Starcher said he won't vote to close schools just to get state money. He said Putnam County could redraw its school districts instead to give Buffalo and Poca more students.
"I'm not in favor of [consolidation]. I want four high schools," he said.
"There's no way in the world I'd vote on anything until I see what redistricting would do."
Meanwhile, Torman and Foster say they'll keep carting petitions over to the school board office.
They argue that a single high school on the north side of the Kanawha River would force some children to ride the bus for too long, and that big schools mean increased crime and less chance that a child will be able to participate in confidence-boosting extracurricular activities.
Vision 20/20 will hold another public hearing on the issue at 7 p.m. July 6 at Winfield High School.

Judge refuses to block allocation of $14.4 million school building funds

Judge refuses to block allocation of $14.4 million school building funds

05-18-99
By BRIAN FARKAS
Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- A Mason County man has lost an initial round to keep $14.4 million in state school construction funds in his county.
Don Greene was in court Monday attempting to delay a state School Building Authority decision that reallocated the money to projects in 11 other counties. The authority had voted hours earlier to fund the projects.
The Leon resident's lawyer told Kanawha County Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib Jr. the reallocation should be halted until next month's court hearing on Greene's lawsuit challenging the county's decision to return the money to the state.
Mason County was given the money in 1996 to replace Point Pleasant, Wahama and Hannan high schools with a single school. Since then, a new school board decided against the consolidation project and in March agreed to give the money back to the state.
That decision came after the state said it would take back the $14.4 million because county officials had failed to start construction within the three-year period required by law.
"You're asking a board of education to do something the board has said it doesn't want to," Zakaib told Greene. "The board of education has already taken a position -- they don't want the money."
The judge then denied Greene's request.
Although the county gave up the money, Greene has filed lawsuits in Kanawha and Mason counties to force board members to stick to the original consolidation plan.
Even with the pending lawsuits, the authority was told Monday it should proceed with its plan to fund the other projects. Authority members had planned to reallocate the money earlier, but agreed to delay their decision to give Greene time to pursue his challenge.
"The threat of legal action shouldn't be used to intimidate state boards," Silas Taylor, managing deputy attorney general, told the authority. "You gave him the opportunity he needed and he failed to take advantage of it."
The authority agreed to use the $14.4 million, plus $500,000 in other authority accounts to fund projects in Barbour, Berkeley, Braxton, Grant, Greenbrier, Monongalia, Pleasants, Raleigh, Roane, Webster and Wyoming counties, said Clacy Williams, the authority's executive director.

Mason farms are being uprooted for those in search of open spaces

Homegrown
Mason farms are being uprooted for those in search of open spacesJuly 20, 1998

Gazette photos by CHRIS DORST
Families farmed these Southern Mason County pastures for years before developers started filling them with subdivision houses. Now local resident Ricky Wright uses his tractor to keep the grass neat around the new Wedgewood Estates.

Gazette Online
By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER
GLENWOOD - Ricky Wright could have been any other farmer in this isolated stretch of southern Mason County, chugging slowly across the sloping pastures on his old farm tractor in the July dusk.
But the sweet, grassy scent in the air didn't come from fresh-mown hay. Wright and his tractor had just clipped some tall weeds from around the white brick pediments announcing the entrance to the new Wedgewood Estates subdivision.
Just two years ago, the land belonged to one of the huge family farms that still dominate the area. Then city water came through. Then Toyota announced plans to build an engine plant just a few miles away in Buffalo. Then the state started building a bridge across the Kanawha River to that plant, and made plans to turn nearby U.S. 35 into a four-lane corridor to Interstate 64.
Developers snapped up a half-dozen or so working farms and transformed them into upscale housing. Now commuters from Charleston and Huntington are moving into the area just north of Milton, known to the locals as Mason Road.
"They're building these monster homes," said Wright, a local resident who mows the empty subdivision lots on the side. He nodded toward the $300,000 masses of plate glass and sand-colored brick, standing starkly in the fields. "You know it's got to help the economy around here somehow."

Newcomers have boosted business at Smith's Market on Mason Road. Otherwise, they haven't changed the remote area much, said store owner Bob Smith.The area's farm economy has never been able to compete with Point Pleasant, the distant northern county seat. Now some locals, like Wright, hope the subdivision growth will give them economic and political leverage they've never had before.

The newcomers, for the most part, just want a pretty place to live.
"We like open spaces," said Gail Hagen, a Wedgewood resident. "My husband likes open spaces."
Hagen stood on the front step of her year-old house and surveyed the endless pasture land surrounding her.
"Actually, I don't know why people want to live this far out," she said. "It's really bad."
Hagen moved with her family from New York after her husband took a job with Inco Alloys in Huntington.
"I thought we'd have lots of neighbors," said Hagen, who has two teen-age sons. "But it's mostly older people with no kids. We drive the boys all the time so they can play with their friends."
April Jackson, who moved in a few miles up the road two years ago, said she and her husband love the seclusion. They built their house near Buffington Acres subdivision to escape crowded Cabell County and raise their five Saint Bernards.
"When we moved in, we didn't really care about the schools," Jackson said. "We just liked the country."
The Jacksons are having a baby next month, as are two of their neighbors who also moved in during the construction boom. They're all worried about the county's plan to consolidate nearby Hannan High School into a single county school at Point Pleasant.
"Nobody in their right mind would move in here if they knew their kid had to ride the bus for two hours," Jackson said. "This is the growing area. It doesn't make any sense to take away the school."
The growth could stop if Hannan High School is shut down. If the area does keep growing, then Hannan area residents should reap the benefits, Jackson said.
"We know our taxes are going to go up," she said. "We want to benefit, not just have Point Pleasant benefit from our taxes."
Property taxes and prices have already ballooned, said area native Bob Smith. Smith runs the 50-year-old Smith's Market grocery store on Mason Road.
"At one time, this was all 100-acre family farms. Nobody was going to cut them loose," he said. "Now they're cutting them up and getting $20,000 for a lot, and some of them are half-acres."
Business has jumped at Smith's Market in the past two years, since newcomers have virtually nowhere else to shop. No convenience stores or gas stations have followed the subdivisions into the area.
"It's a nice quiet area. They haven't changed it much," Smith said. "Not yet."
The nearest shopping mall is still miles away from Mason Road. Nothing is really close at hand, and Wright said he likes it that way.
"Yeah, it'll change, but hopefully for the good," Wright said. "I hope. I hope."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, call 348-5189.

Mason school consolidation site tests delivered with a disclaimer

Mason school consolidation site tests delivered with a disclaimer
July 28, 1998

Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

POINT PLEASANT - No toxic waste appears to be contaminating the Mason County consolidated high school site, the head of a private testing firm told school board members Monday.
The results came with a disclaimer, though.
"We didn't sample for anything and everything," said Ron Potesta, head of Potesta and Associates of Charleston. "There may be something we missed."
The county paid Potesta $12,750 to test the school site's soil and groundwater after parents raised an alarm in April, when state environmental officials said the 65-acre field might be contaminated with toxic waste.
School board members - some of whom have since been voted out of office - had just voted to abandon a site the county already owned and buy the new site for $650,000 from a group of local businessmen.
They planned to close Wahama, Hannan and Point Pleasant high schools, and build a $15 million, 1,400-student county high school on the land north of Point Pleasant.
The land was part of a Superfund environmental cleanup site until four years ago, and toxic waste left over from a World War II explosives factory still contaminates the land and groundwater nearby.
The property was also used as a state agriculture test station for years, and parents became concerned that DDT and other pesticide residues may still contaminate the land.
Potesta didn't test for some of those chemicals, board member Shirley Gue noted. Gue has led other Mason County parents in fighting consolidation for three years.
"There's a known contaminant list from the Department of Defense. Arsenic, etc.," Gue said. "None of those things were tested?"
"That's correct," said Potesta engineer Dave Carpenter.
Carpenter said he just tested for what he expected to find, based on the memories of people who worked on the property and advice from some West Virginia University professors.
No written logs could be found for WVU's 30 years of agricultural tests, Potesta said. The man who ran the test station for 10 years said he may have some records of what chemicals he used, but he couldn't lay his hands on them just now.
Another man who had farmed the property said he had records of the chemicals he used, but he wouldn't let Carpenter see them.
"Most of them were referring to their memory, not exact logs," Potesta said.
"That's what concerns me," Gue said.
Potesta said he found no trace of the explosive trinitrotolulene (TNT), which contaminates the groundwater on the nearby Superfund site. He didn't find any residues from the pesticides and herbicides people remembered using on the field, either.
Potesta based his findings on 20 soil samples and a surface water sample from a drainage ditch that flows onto the property from the direction of the old explosives plant.
In wet weather, water from the ditch pools in the middle of the field and slowly seeps into the ground. In dry weather, a local farmer says the water in that ditch runs red, Carpenter said.
"That could be natural high iron in the soil. It could be biological activity," Carpenter said. "I never saw anything stained red in the ditch."
Local residents are still fighting the consolidation plan with a lawsuit, which is currently making its way through Mason County Circuit Court. Since anti-consolidation members took over the county school board in July, those residents have gained confidence.
"Won't make any difference," whispered consolidation foe Clifford Oliver, as Potesta and Carpenter prepared to make their presentation to the school board. "There ain't gonna be a school down there."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, call 348-5189.

Consolidation hearing delay doesn't dampen Mason spirits

Consolidation hearing delay doesn't dampen Mason spirits
May 14, 1998

Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
PUTNAM COUNTY REPORTER

POINT PLEASANT - Hours after they claimed victory in the Mason County school board race, consolidation foes were back in the courthouse Wednesday for an injunction hearing to kill a proposed consolidated high school.
Their spirits weren't dampened when Circuit Judge Clarence Watt sent them all home, continuing the hearing until May 20 after school board lawyer John Teare filed a surprise motion early Wednesday.
"I'm still on a high from last night," said New Haven retiree Dorothy Roush, who worked to replace incumbents with anti-consolidation candidates Peggy Huff and Shirley Gue. "I wanted to go through town blowing my horn, but I've gotten this far without getting arrested and I don't want to start now."
Most of the courthouse spectators have been fighting consolidation for years. They lined up to support Gue in her injunction lawsuit this spring after school board members started pushing for a consolidated high school north of Point Pleasant.
Gue only named Mason County school board members in her lawsuit, but Teare's motion says that the state school board and School Building Authority should be defendants, too.
There's one problem with that motion, said Mason County board President David Morgan. The school board never discussed it, much less decided to do it. "I walked in this morning and they had filed their motion," said Morgan, who has voted in the minority on the board against consolidation. "They must have had a meeting last night that I missed."
Morgan lost in Tuesday's election, but anti-consolidation member Darrell Hagley will remain on the board. Together with Huff and Gue, Hagley will be able to outvote member Amanda Clark and new member Jo Hannah Rorrer, who are seen as favoring the consolidated high school.
Morgan said he suspects the election results scared the consolidation advocates on the board, and they want to bring in the state as a defendant in an effort to get the case moved to a Kanawha court.
"I'm no lawyer, but that's a problem for me," Morgan said. "We're supposed to be his clients, and I don't know whether this is good for us or bad for us. I think it's something that should have been discussed. It's major."
Superintendent Larry Parsons, who has worked to push consolidation through, said it's not out of the ordinary for a school board lawyer to act without consulting his clients.
"The board is not consulted routinely by the law firm," Parsons said. "That's the decision the law firm made, and the firm has the latitude to do that."
Parsons said Wednesday that if the new board starts voting against consolidation, he will just switch gears and do what they tell him.
"If the board changes and the direction's different, I'll work just as vehemently for that board," he said. "My job is to work for the board."
Gue's lawyer, Barry Bruce, asked for the continuance so he could review the opposition's argument. As he did two weeks ago when testimony started, Watt told the school board not to move forward on the consolidation plan until the lawsuit is resolved.
Watt, who had postponed the remaining testimony until after Tuesday's election, joked about the outcome with the crowd. "I notice among the spectators some bloodshot eyes. What were you doing last night?" he said. "I take it that there are winners and there are losers. Somebody has said that's all we've got left, is elections to decide things.
"Now go home and get some sleep."

Election may mean consolidation reversal

Election may mean consolidation reversal
May 13, 1998

By Ken Ward Jr.
GAZETTE ONLINE

Anti-consolidation candidates trounced incumbents in the Mason County school board race Tuesday night, perhaps paving the way to reverse a move to create one high school for the entire county.
Challengers and leading consolidation opponents Shirley Gue of Ashton and Peggy Huff of New Haven led the ticket in a field of 15 candidates, with 3,379 and 3,312 votes, respectively.
With all 38 precincts reporting, another challenger, Jo Hannah Rorrer of Point Pleasant, came in a distant third with 1,371 votes to capture the third open seat.
Huff and Gue ran a "Vote for Two, Huff and Gue" campaign against the consolidation and incumbent consolidation proponents Donna M. Thompson and Mary Beth Carlisle.
"I think the county has spoken," Gue said from Point Pleasant. "We're going to say a prayer and then stop one high school."
Thompson received just 844 votes and Carlisle, 446. Another incumbent, J. David Morgan, received 1,027 votes. Morgan had a mixed voting record on consolidation, but voted against it in the end.
School consolidation opponents targeted Carlisle and Thompson for defeat after they voted in favor of combining Point Pleasant, Wahama and Hannan high schools into one facility.
One of the two incumbents not up for re-election this year voted against the consolidation. So with a victory by Gue and Huff, they could attempt to reverse the move.
"They do not want just one high school in Mason County," she said. "And they knew if they elected us they wouldn't have just one high school in Mason County."
Parents fighting the consolidation plan have halted the project, at least temporarily, with a suit filed in Mason Circuit Court.
Gue said she would like to put the consolidation issue on the ballot in the fall and allow the people of Mason County to vote on it. She thinks it would be defeated easily.
"There's no way one high school can serve all the students of our county," Gue said. "Our county is way too large and an hour or an hour and a half bus ride is too much."
Among other school board candidates, Paul James Doeffinger received 1,282 votes; Bob Drain, 979; Tom Sauer, 643; Donald E. Greene Jr., 531; Michael Ellswroth Whalen, 416; Rich Tench, 332; and Frankie Chapman, 227.
In other Mason County races, Circuit Clerk Bill Withers led the Democratic primary with 2,074 votes. Sherry Clatworthy received 374 and Shelly D. Mayes, 248.
Republican candidate Patty Lee was unopposed.
Incumbent County Commissioner Phyllis Ashley Arthur defeated two challengers in the Democratic primary. Arthur received 1,664 votes. Challenger Olston O. "Nick" Wright received 1,370 and Ben Roush Jr., 708.
James H. Lewis led the GOP primary with 972 votes. Gene O. Haer received 749 votes and Freddie Green, 736.
County Clerk Diana Cromley easily held off a challenge in the Democratic primary from Harry "Moke" Simpkins. Cromley received 2,485 votes and Simpkins, 1,180 votes. Republican Annette Boyles was unopposed.

School site's suitability questioned

School site's suitability questioned
Mason land may be contaminatedApril 2, 1998



Gazette photo by F. BRIAN FERGUSON
Mason County school officials say this 65-acre site is perfectly suitable for a consolidated high school, but residents worry about contamination from a nearby Superfund site and an old pesticide research station.



 

By Tara Tuckwiller
Gazette Online
POINT PLEASANT - Mason County school officials say they've found the right piece of land for their consolidated high school. It's vacant and flat, just north of Point Pleasant, with plenty of room for parking lots and football fields.
It also sits in the shadow of a federal Superfund site, where toxic waste left over from a World War II explosives factory lies buried in the ground and still contaminates the groundwater.
Also, environmental officials say pesticide residues such as DDT, the legacy of an old state agriculture test station, may still contaminate the 65-acre tract the school board wants.
"I'm alarmed," said Shirley Gue, a parent who has led residents in a three-year fight against the consolidated high school. "If they're going to build this school, it at least needs to be in a safe place."
Lawsuits filed by Gue and other parents have stalled the project since 1995, when the state School Building Authority gave Mason County $14.4 million to consolidate its three high schools. County officials had previously talked about building on a tract of land the county already owns, until this week when they got permission from the authority to buy the land near the Mason County Airport and build the school there.
"We approved this on the condition that it's a suitable site," said Clacy Williams, the authority's executive director. "I wasn't aware of any problem with pesticides. That sounds like something the school board is going to have to get their architectural firm to address."
The school board would pay the 10 local businessmen who own the property as much as $650,000 for it, county Superintendent Larry Parsons said. The original site near the Mason County Vocational Center is too small, he said, and the owners have government documentation that says the site near the airport is safe for building.
"We'll do the necessary studies," Parsons said. "If it ends up that it's not safe, I'll be the first to say build somewhere else."
The buried chemicals at the nearby Superfund site probably won't threaten the school site, said Pete Costello, site project officer for the state Division of Environmental Protection's Superfund section. The school site lies outside the area the factory used for production and waste treatment of the explosive trinitrotolulene (TNT), where contamination was heaviest. Past tests of the land the school board wants have not shown any contamination.
"We don't have a decision document to write it off," Costello said. "We're comfortable there's nothing there, but we're not certain."
When the explosives plant shut down in the 1940s, the state started using part of the land - the school site - as an agricultural test station. Since that had nothing to do with the TNT plant, the Army didn't have to clean it up, Costello said.
"Pesticide residue would be a big concern with me," he said. "In the 1950s, DDT was very common, and some other chemicals that are pretty persistent. Being an experimental station, it's hard to tell what they were testing."
In later years, somebody used the same site to dump some PCB transformers illegally, Costello said. The contaminated soil was scooped up and hauled away.
"There were some groundwater and soil samples taken in 1988 or 1989 regarding that, and everything appeared hunky-dory," he said.
Parsons said residents who oppose consolidation are just grasping at the contamination issue in a desperate attempt to stop the project. Gue, who has filed for a circuit court injunction against the consolidated school, said she will pursue the contamination angle if that tactic fails.
School officials are letting politics get in the way of children's safety, she said.
"Look who owns that property," she said. "You're talking about the power brokers of the county."
A partnership called Deerfield Development bought 700 acres in and around the Superfund site in 1995, just after Mason County got the $14.4 million from the School Building Authority. The partnership consists of state lottery director John Musgrave, who headed the Mason County Development Authority in 1995; Jack Fruth, who owns a chain of pharmacies; Bob Wingett, publisher of the Point Pleasant Register; Michael Sellards, executive director of Pleasant Valley Hospital; area businessmen Marshall Reynolds, Art Hartley Sr., Leo Calandros and Charles Lanham; and Point Pleasant attorneys C. Dallas Kayser and Michael Shaw.
Shaw said he and his partners bought the land because they wanted to bring in industries, and they never thought of selling it to the school board. A number of businesses have shown interest, he said.
"We're not too keen on the idea of putting a school there," he said. "It would severely limit our ability to develop businesses."
Costello said the land Deerfield Development owns would probably not be the easiest land to sell, since so much of the adjacent land has been on the EPA's national priorities list for hazardous waste cleanup since 1984.
"There's a stigma being on this national priorities list," he said. "The school portion isn't on there, but it's so close to the land that is."

Mason consolidation plan gets OK

Mason consolidation plan gets OK
But parents who oppose combining three high schools vow to block proposalMarch 31, 1998

By Tara Tuckwiller
Gazette Online

POINT PLEASANT - Mason County school officials got state permission Monday to close the county's three high schools and build a new school north of Point Pleasant, but many of the 120 residents who attended a public hearing on the closings said they won't stand for it.
"Here we go again," said Hannan parent Shirley Gue, who has led an anti-consolidation group in the county for three years. "The people of Mason County have said it a hundred times, but for the record, I will say it again. We do not want one high school in Mason County."
Twenty-one parents from Gue's group, which calls itself "Mason County Kids First," filed a lawsuit against the county school board last week in Mason circuit court, seeking an injunction against the consolidated school plan. They allege that board members are violating the 1997 agreement that settled the county's last anti-consolidation lawsuit by not following certain procedures, such as updating bus schedules, before they proposed consolidation again.
Board members want to close Hannan, Wahama and Point Pleasant high schools and build a $19 million, 1,400-student consolidated school about two miles north of Point Pleasant. Residents have repeatedly stalled the county's attempts to consolidate since the state School Building Authority granted $14.4 million for a consolidated high school three years ago.
"We basically heard from the SBA today that if we don't move ahead on this project, it's a dead duck," board member Mary Beth Carlisle said at Monday night's public hearing. "We can't let the people vote on it, and we can't use the money for anything we want. That's a fallacy."
Residents who spoke at the hearing said Mason County is too big for one high school, and they would like to see at least two high schools stay open. School officials since September have been planning a regional high school that would serve 750 students from Mason and Putnam counties.
Parsons and other county officials got permission from the state School Building Authority on Monday to move their planned consolidated high school from a plot the county owns near Point Pleasant High School to a bigger plot outside town, which would cost an estimated $650,000. The authority approved the site change on the condition that the school would serve all Mason County students, Parsons said.
That would seem to rule out a regional high school, but Parsons said it is still a possibility.
"We have reason to remain optimistic about that," he said.
Cindy Ball, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she would send her daughter Jennifer to private school in Huntington before she would let the school board bus her from Hannan to a consolidated high school at Point Pleasant.
"A lot of parents in Mason County work in Huntington," Ball said. "I do, and if my daughter got sick I would be 100 miles away from her. I couldn't pick her up."
The consolidated high school could be finished within three years, Parsons said. Board members will vote on closing the three high schools at their April 7 meeting.
As for the $4 million difference between the cost of the new school and the money Mason County has in hand, Parsons said he's not sure where that will come from.
"We need to look at a variety of sources on that," he said.
If Mason County doesn't start building a consolidated school by next March, the county will have to give up the money, reapply and compete against other counties for funds again, the Authority said Monday.
Putnam County schools Superintendent Sam Sentelle said officials there will continue planning the regional high school.

State fails to heed lessons from school consolidation

Gazette Online
(Aug. 24)

The emperor has no clothes
State fails to heed lessons from school consolidation

THIS is really sad. The West Virginia School Building Authority continues blindly down its path of destruction, taking into consideration not one single shred of evidence to support what it is doing. But destruction is what the SBA achieves. With your money and your blessing, dear readers.

Eight years ago, I put up a pretty good fight against school consolidation. I fought it on West Virginia Public Television and in the Gazette, in the courtrooms in Clay and Greenbrier counties, and in open school board meetings in Randolph, Preston and Mason counties. I lost, of course. So did West Virginia children and the folks who live in the wonderful small towns of this state.
I argued then, and I argue now, that the work of the SBA destroys the children of this state. I had less empirical evidence at that time. I have more now, and the information is just too sad.
These guys are supposed to be educators. They are supposed to encourage our children to learn and employ the benefits of science. Yet, in their own work they disregard or reject the very method which they espouse for their children. For the best scientific research has shown again what we have known for many years: Consolidation destroys children.
The research I discuss here is not my own. I am indebted to many hard-working souls whose labor I will share with any individual or school board who requests my sources. This information is based on cold, hard numbers computed through the best scientific methods we know.
Consolidation does not save money. Countless studies have proven that. In many cases the cost per student increases with consolidation.
Consolidation does not improve student performance, contrary to the theory espoused by the icon of American education, Dr. James Conant. Bad and ill-informed theory that.
Conant argued in his book, "The Comprehensive High School," published 31 years ago, that a larger school would provide an economy of scale and allow for more specialized classes, a greater variety of activities. Well, he was right about the variety and the specialization. What he implied, of course, was that this would improve American education. In that he was not correct. Implemented, the theory has destroyed the very thing he wished to improve.
We know now that the expanded curriculum benefits only a very small minority of children. On the other hand, we also know that as school size expands, student participation decreases.
We know now that the students shipped in from rural communities participate less in school activities than they did in their own small community schools. We know now that attendance drops and truancy and behavior problems increase as school size grows.
Controlling all other variables, we know now that the use of cigarettes, chewing tobacco, alcohol and controlled substances increases with the size of the school. We also know that consolidation is a major cause of school violence.
The list is very long. Teacher-student interaction is damaged by large schools. Small schools are more flexible and adaptable to the particular needs of that school. The children of poverty fare the worst in the move to consolidation. Parental involvement decreases as schools consolidate. Small communities are ruined when they lose the centerpiece of community life.
So why does the SBA continue to impose its treacherous will upon the small communities of West Virginia? It's like the story in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." Once you've destroyed a few lives, you've got to keep on doing it or else you'd have to admit you were wrong. And what bureaucrat has ever been wrong?
We read that student achievement scores have been going down over the past several decades.
Did it ever occur to anybody that the years covered by this discouraging revelation are identical to the years in which we have been consolidating our schools?
Did anybody ever notice that while departments and schools of education have multiplied, and while the bureaucratic accrediting agencies placed more and more demands upon those schools and departments, school violence has increased and student performance has been going down?
Does anybody notice anything wrong with this picture?
Hello out there! We've ruined the children. Does anybody hear me? Does anybody care? Is anybody out there? The emperor has no clothes.

Dr. Warner, a professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College, is one of the Gazette's contributing columnists.

Mason votes 3-2 to close 3 schools

Mason votes 3-2 to close 3 schools
April 8, 1998

Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

POINT PLEASANT - Parents and some school board members say they worry that Mason County wants to build its consolidated high school on a contaminated site, but school board members voted Tuesday in a 3-2 decision to close the county's three high schools anyway.
Board President David Morgan voted against the closures. He said officials are trying to rush through a 1,400-student consolidated school north of Point Pleasant, which would be built near a federal Superfund site on land that state environmental officials say may be contaminated.
"As I have jokingly said, what the heck. Two heads are better than one," Morgan said. "I would not want the decision of which of my grandchildren's heads to pat when they do something good."
Mason school officials have been trying to consolidate county high schools for years, and three years ago got a $14.4 million appropriation from the state School Building Authority to build on land the board already owns in Point Pleasant. Citizens stalled the project with lawsuits.
Last week, county Superintendent Larry Parsons got permission from the School Building Authority to buy a different site from a group of local businessmen, and build the school there. The county would pay up to $650,000 for the land and would have to come up with several million more dollars to build the school.
Until 1994, the 65-acre tract the school board wants was part of the Superfund site, where toxic waste from a World War II explosives factory is buried 2 feet under the ground. Environmental officials took the 65-acre tract off the Superfund site, along with about two-thirds of the surrounding land, after conferring with a community advisory board.
The advisory board was headed by John Musgrave, then head of the Mason County Development Authority, now director of the state Lottery Commission.
Musgrave is part of a partnership that bought several hundred acres of the property in and around the Superfund site in 1995, including the portion school officials now want to buy.
Hannan parent Shirley Gue, who has filed for a circuit court injunction against the consolidation, said she was "floored" when she found out the new site was part of a Superfund project until a few years ago. She started researching documents about the site from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense, and put her findings up on an Internet site.
"A site with this much questionable history is a concern for most parents in the county," Gue's site states. "Until a certification is issued by the U.S. Army declaring explicitly this site is contaminant free ... this site should not be considered as a place to put 1,400 students."
Parsons wrote to Pete Costello of the state Division of Environmental Protection, telling him that local residents had expressed concern about possible contamination. Costello has said the site may be contaminated with DDT or other pesticides from a state agricultural test station which operated there for years.
"I was requested to provide a written response to 'assist in eliminating this concern,' " Costello said, quoting from Parsons' letter. "I just said what I've been saying. We don't have reason to believe the property is contaminated, but that does not reflect any analytical sampling work.
"As far as the agricultural contamination, we just haven't turned that page at all. We're not commanding the school board, but the responsible person would turn that page."
Parsons said the county will conduct environmental testing on the site, and will build somewhere else if it turns out to be contaminated. Morgan said the uncertainty about the site makes him uncomfortable.
"I'm not confident with statements such as, 'We think it's clear,'" Morgan said. "That's probably what they said 30 years ago when they buried God knows what there.
"We can't bury our problems. They will eventually come back to haunt us."
Board member Darrell Hagley, who also voted against closing the schools, said he didn't even want to vote Tuesday. He said the board wasn't given time to consider written questions from several residents about the possible contamination, the hours-long bus rides students would face, and other issues.
Parsons said he wants the state school board to vote on Mason County's plan at its meeting Thursday. Gue plans to speak at that meeting, too.
"I'll have to," she said. "I have to try to get them to consider this possible contamination."