Challenge West Virginia

Superintendent after superintendent went before the state School Building Authority Monday and Tuesday. Some asked for a lot, some asked for a little. But they all hope to bring back a share of the $40-million in SBA funding available this year.

Kenneth Tanner, the school superintendent of Clay County, requested $2 million from the SBA Monday. That money would go towards upgrades at Clay County Middle School. The building needs new heating and cooling units.

“We have some issues with air quality. We have some air conditioning that are window units. They’re very noisy,” Tanner said.

In fact, in many classrooms, the window AC is so loud teachers have to turn them off during instruction time just to be heard. That, in turn, makes the rooms both stuffy and hot.

Tanner says Clay County is struggling with high unemployment. The school system doesn’t have a lot of money to put into the project.

“We’ll be struggling to come up with five percent probably, maybe 10 percent if things go well. But without the SBA’s help, the project won’t be possible,” Tanner said.

Another county holding out their hand for help is Kanawha. Superintendent Ron Duerring met with the SBA Tuesday morning requesting $2 million for a major upgrade at Andrew Heights Elementary near St. Albans. The county has $600,000 to put towards the project which includes getting rid of portable classrooms and adding new classrooms to the main building including a cafeteria, kitchen, music/art room and a high tech computer lab.

“We’ve had growth out there in population with people moving and now it’s at its capacity,” according to Duerring, “We need to be able to get the electrical system up where it can handle the technology and give these students some additional space and some extra learning opportunities.”

Another school system hoping for money is Boone County. The $7 million project at Sherman Jr./Sr. High would add add 21st century science classrooms and a bus loop that gets school traffic off the very busy Route 3.

This year Boone County came with $2 million of its own money. The system is requesting $5 million from the SBA.

“This plan is similar to what we presented two-years ago. And also last year we included this as our top priority plan in our project,” said Boone County Superintendent John Hudson. “And we’re coming back again with a very similar project.

The SBA has turned down the Boone County project two years in a row. But Hudson says, “I believe the third time is the charm.”

The SBA will announce which projects it’s chosen to fund at the authority’s April 23rd meeting.

The West Virginia School Building Authority has a lot less money to hand out this year than in the past.

Gone are the funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“We’ve exhausted those funds and now we’re in the process of looking at a second bond sale, capitalizing on [today's] interest,” according to SBA Executive Director Mark Manchin.

The bonds funded by the stimulus money were at an interest rate of 1.5 percent or less. Any new bonds the SBA goes after will be at 3.5 percent or higher. That makes a big difference in how much money they have to hand out.

At the peak of the stimulus, the SBA had $100 million in funding to fork over during their needs project requests. This year, that amount is far less.

School superintendents from various counties began making their presentations to the SBA Monday morning. Additional presentations are scheduled Tuesday.

There won’t be enough money to go around.

“It appears there will be approximately 40 million dollars available for distribution this year and a little less next year for distribution,” Manchin said Monday.

Less than half the counties in the state didn’t even apply for funding this year. All total, 24 county school systems have requested $170 million. Only a fraction of those counties will get funding in 2012, even fewer in 2013.

Manchin stresses the projects that will be chosen will be those with the most compelling presentations.

“The highest priority always has and will be the health and safety of children,” he said. “In some instances, some of these facilities are aging and there’s some real issues with health and safety.”

Another factor whether counties get funding is if they have money to put towards the project on top of the SBA funding. The SBA’s unofficial motto has always been to ‘help those who help themselves.’

Hardy County is requesting the most funding at $21.5 million for major renovations at East Hardy High School and the construction of a new Moorefield High School.

MetroNews Talkline
Statewide

The President of the West Virginia Education Association says the extra days built into the school calendar in some West Virginia counties would have been needed, if the winter had been harsher.

“These calendars were approved last year and so, if you had a crystal ball to know when you’re going to have a mild winter, when you’re going to have a bad winter, you could adjust,” Dale Lee said.

Because of unused days banked in anticipation of snow that really never came, students in some parts of the state will be out of a school for several additional days in April.

For example, in Marion County, eight of the weeks left in the 2011-2012 school year will be shorter than five days because of the saved days that have not been used for weather.

Taking into account Spring Break and other out of classroom days, there will 12 actual instruction days in Marion County’s schools next month.

The instructional days are about the same in Monongalia County as well.

Lee talked about the issue on Tuesday’s MetroNews Talkline.

By law, students are required to have 180 days of instruction and, Lee says, the year could have easily gone much differently.

“Had Easter come early this year, had we had the Spring Break in March like many times we do, had we had the snow days and made them up and you would have gone to school in April, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” he said in response to questions about the extra days in the calendar.

Because of the low number of snow days this year, he says State Schools Superintendent Jorea Marple has given county school officials the authority to move some extra days to the end of the year.

Talkline Host Hoppy Kercheval

West Virginia spends about $3.5 billion (state and federal dollars) on public education every year.
That’s a lot of money, especially considering the state’s small size. In fact, West Virginia ranks 8th in education spending relative to income.

But West Virginia students rank below the national average in 21 of 24 categories measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

So that prompts the question, is West Virginia getting its money’s worth in public education?

According to a recently released comprehensive audit of the state’s public education system by the consulting firm Public Works, the short answer is no.

The report, requested by the Governor’s Office, includes 143 pages of specific problems and recommendations for improvements in the state’s school system. It includes everything from how teachers are hired and paid to how school buses make their rounds.

The report says the state could save $116 million over five years through recommended efficiencies. Those measures are not chopping-block measures, but rather best practices that are proven money savers.

There’s way too much to include in one commentary, and I’ll be talking about it much more in the days and weeks ahead, but let’s start with the most significant finding, the discovery that explains a lot about our problems in public education.

“The system is detailed to the extreme in statutory language that results in an education system that has little flexibility to modify policy and operations without changes to the Code (state law),” the report said. “We have encountered no other state (emphasis added) that insulates its education system so much from gubernatorial—or voter—control.”

So, virtually every change must first go through the legislature, a cumbersome and time consuming process that stifles initiative and helps perpetuate the status quo.

The report says West Virginia has “one of the most highly regulated systems in the country—if not the most—with many of the details of school operations spelled out in the code.”

Naturally, with so many of the specifics of how to run the schools included in state law, it takes an inordinate number of administrative staff people to keep track.

The Public Works report found that West Virginia has the equivalent of one staff person for every 419 students. That’s the second most top heavy ratio in the country. (Alaska has one staff person for every 207 students).

Comparable states do much better on this front. For example, Nebraska, which has about the same number of students at West Virginia, has one staff member for every 1,354 students. West Virginia’s state education bureaucracy has 675 staff members while Nebraska has 215.

In fairness, one reason the staff size is higher is because the number includes staff at the Cedar Lakes Conference Center in Jackson County, which is under state Department of Education. Even so, West Virginia still has a bloated education bureaucracy compared with other states.

The report shows that West Virginia’s Department of Education has 54 senior staff administrative positions, including 20 executive directors and division directors and 27 assistant directors. Nebraska has 17. Colorado has 14.

Too many regulations etched in the stone of the state code and too many administrators to oversee all those laws have created a red-tape-filled top-heavy education system in West Virginia that badly needs an overhaul.