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.

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.

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.

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.

As states seek to pare down spending, a new report warns elected officials against rushing into one popular strategy for cutting costs: school and district consolidation.

The report, based on review of available research, argues that claims about potential financial savings through consolidation are often exaggerated and misunderstood.

The review, conducted by researchers at Ohio University, concludes that savings to states from consolidating districts are often minimal, and mostly come about in districts serving a small number of students. In many instances, in fact, combining districts can create “diseconomies of scale” and result in increased costs in transportation, operations, management, security, and other areas, says the report, which was released by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Overall, the effects of merging districts and schools are “nuanced, indicating that efficiencies can be achieved in some expenditure areas and for certain types of schools or districts,” the authors say, while also suggesting “caution for policymakers pursuing consolidation in the hope of cutting costs.”

The authors’ review also calls into question the claim that consolidation produces greater academic opportunities for students, in the form of academic course offerings. In some cases, it also results in reduced student participation in co-curricular and extracurricular activities, they say.

States tend to look to consoliation during times of financial duress, like now. A major wave of consolidation played out from the 1930s to the 1970s. Unlike consolidations that have occurred more recently, that mid-century consolidation wave by and large brought many benefits, in the form of greater specialization in subject-matter teaching, more effective school leadership, and other advantages, the authors contend.

What caused the 1930s-1970s consolidation wave? One factor was the automobile. Students who previously were forced to stay close to home, the authors say, were able to cover ever-greater distances in cars and buses on an improved network of roads.

If you’re in a state that has merged schools or districts to save money or for academic reasons, what do you make of the report’s caution-on-consolidation message?

“The Reconnecting McDowell partnership is a great example of how union-management collaboration and leading non-profits can come together to push for dramatic improvements in education. This partnership had its inception in a request from Gayle Manchin–Sen. Manchin’s wife and a member of the state Board of Education–to Randi Weingarten, the AFT president. More than 30 public, private, and non-profit groups have since signed the McDowell Covenant, and all of them have committed to providing services, money, products and/or expertise to McDowell County’s schools, children, and families.

“The McDowell partnership is a powerful affirmation of the Obama administration’s Promise Neighborhoods program, which also empowers communities to tackle both out-of-school and in-school obstacles to children’s success. Just like the Promise Neighborhood program, the Reconnecting McDowell covenant recognizes that education must be the centerpiece of the effort to expand opportunities for children.

“It’s my hope that the McDowell County initiative will help move us beyond the narrow, either–or debates over the causes of academic failure. Everyone who has worked with poor children knows that poverty matters and affects school performance. But everyone who has witnessed the life-altering impact of great teachers and great schools knows that schools matter enormously, too. In America, poverty is not destiny, and neither is geography.

“The Reconnecting McDowell covenant acknowledges that poverty, job loss, drug and alcohol abuse, housing shortages for teachers, limited medical services, and inadequate access to technology and transportation are all serious educational challenges. But as the covenant states: ‘We refuse to see those challenges as reasons not to achieve.’ The Reconnecting McDowell partnership is an urgent reminder that it takes a school and parents to educate a child. But it takes a community, too.”

McDOWELL COUNTY - The American Federation of Teachers, vilified by critics as an obstacle to school reform, is leading an unusual effort to turn around a floundering school system in a place where deprivation is layered on heartache.

The AFT, which typically represents teachers in urban settings, wants to improve education deep in the heart of Appalachia by simultaneously tackling the social and economic troubles of McDowell County.

The union has gathered about 40 partners, including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cisco Systems, IBM, Save the Children, foundations, utility companies, housing specialists, community colleges, and state and federal governments, which have committed to a five-year plan to try to lift McDowell out of its depths.

The McDowell Initiative, announced Friday, comes in the middle of a national debate about what causes failing schools in impoverished communities: the educators or the environment?

Reformers such as former District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee argue that for too long, weak teachers have used poverty as an excuse and that an effective educator can transcend circumstances. Unions such as the AFT maintain that economic and social factors must be addressed for a child to succeed.

“I’ve gotten so angry in the last couple of years when people who are new to our field decide that they alone, just by exhorting, will help ensure that geography does not become destiny for some kids,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, the nation’s second-largest teachers union. “A lot of the factors that confront kids - poverty, divorce, health care - are real obstacles. People can pretend to ignore them elsewhere, but no one can ignore those factors in McDowell.”

The children who file into Anawalt Elementary School here each morning carry burdens that hang over them like haze from the nearby coal mines.

Most of the youngsters live with grown-ups who do not hold jobs, casualties of coal’s collapse. Many are being raised by grandparents because their mothers and fathers are in prison or struggling with addiction. Eight of every 10 children in the school meet the state’s definition of poor. Some rarely see a doctor.

Their 1924 school building has a failing roof, steps that tremble under the weight of an adult, an unheated gymnasium and antiquated electrical wiring that can’t power air conditioning.

There are no after-school activities because if the children miss the school bus, they have no way to reach their modest houses and trailers, which are tucked into mountain crevices.

There are no recreation centers, no YMCAs. Leaving the county is so unusual that on a school trip to the Dollywood amusement park in Tennessee last year, several children mistook a highway rest stop, with its glass doors and bright lights, for their destination.

The state, which took over the McDowell public schools nearly a decade ago, has failed to make much of a dent in the county’s abysmal test scores and a dropout rate more than three times the national average.

“I can’t tell you how appalled and embarrassed that made me,” said Gayle Manchin, the wife of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who joined the state Board of Education in 2008. “Those children weren’t any better off.”

Manchin, thinking a more ambitious effort was needed, turned to Weingarten for help.

“I knew if we were going to do this, we had to do it the right way,” Weingarten said. “That’s why we wanted a lot of partners, and the people in McDowell had to want us to be involved and that we were going to have to deal with all the issues - education, social, economic.”

She said the McDowell Initiative isn’t about improving the image of the teachers union, which critics - including the makers of the movie “Waiting for Superman” - contend is more concerned about protecting working conditions for adults than improving student learning.

“This is not a photo op,” Weingarten said. “This is a moral commitment. We’re in the business of making a difference in the lives of people.”

It is unclear exactly what the McDowell Initiative will entail or cost. The union has committed $100,000 and staff time for planning the project over the next six months.

But it is likely to include improvements that directly affect schools, such as expanded broadband so that digital learning can become a regular component of classroom instruction, better teacher training and a fine-tuned instructional program.

Investments would also be geared to help families outside the classroom, such as better access to health care, drug prevention and treatment programs, better transportation, and more recreation.

These improvements, known as “wraparound services,” have been successful in other turnaround efforts, notably the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York, where families get free access to an array of health and nutrition counseling as well as after-school programs, truancy prevention, literacy programs, financial advice and domestic-crisis resolution.

The difference between those programs and the McDowell Initiative is that the “wraparound services” will have to be created from scratch in McDowell, which spans 535 square miles, not simply imported from a nearby neighborhood.

The southernmost county in West Virginia, McDowell has produced the most coal in this mining state. For generations, that was enough to sustain the community, which swelled to 100,000 by 1950. But once coal and the related steel industry started declining in the 1960s, McDowell’s descent was rapid. The first food stamps were issued in 1961. Today, the population is about 22,000.

“Anyone with any energy, money and drive is gone,” Philip LaCaria was saying recently as he stood outside his law office near the courthouse in Welch. Nearly every other storefront on the main street is vacant, but LaCaria’s practice is thriving. Half his clients are fighting drug charges, he said. “People use drugs as an escape, to escape reality,” he said. “The folks here don’t have any perception of the future.”

Just when it seemed that McDowell had hit rock bottom, the floods came. Violent water churned through the small towns in 2001 and 2002, further devastating lives. Hundreds of houses were abandoned, left to decay.

Drug addiction has emerged as a major problem and one reason why so few county residents are employed at a new federal prison in the county - they can’t pass the drug test, said Bob Brown, an AFT senior national representative. The few remaining coal mines are having trouble attracting workers for the same reason, he said.

By 2001, the McDowell public schools had fallen into such physical decay and academic failure that the state took over, repairing or shuttering several and building new facilities.

But school consolidation has created new problems, with children riding longer routes over narrow, curving mountain roads.

And despite the state takeover, school leadership has been in flux. Jim Brown, named superintendent last year, is the third since 2001.

He came armed with a turnaround strategy for the county’s 12 schools. But by the end of his first day, he tossed it away. “It took six months to really understand the dynamics here,” he said.

The poverty, broken homes and isolation mean that most McDowell students start school behind. By 3, the average child in this country has a vocabulary of 12,000 words. In McDowell, that child knows 5,000.

Still, last year - for the first time in two decades - McDowell schools showed some growth in scores on tests administered by the state. But Brown knows the road ahead is steep.

Attracting good teachers is a major challenge because of a lack of middle-class housing. Absenteeism is chronic among staff and students. This year, 409 of the county’s 3,600 students have been flagged as truant, he said.

Paige Blankenship, 9, likes attending her school, Bradshaw Elementary, in the western part of the county. She lives in a trailer with her mother, aunt and grandmother. Her father, who lives in another town, isn’t much of a presence in her life.

Paige shares a bedroom with her mother, Sherry, who quit her job as a butcher to care for her mother, Tondael, who has respiratory troubles. Paige’s grandfather, a coal miner, died at 52 from liver and kidney cancer. Paige’s aunt, Georgia, 44, is a former emergency medical technician who suffered a heart attack recently and stopped working.

Their home is wedged into a hill about 75 yards from the railroad tracks. They live on about $23,000 a year in public assistance. “We don’t have much, but we’re OK,” Sherry said in the small living room, which had framed pictures of Jesus and angels on the wall. “We’ve never missed a meal.”

On a recent night, Paige, Sherry and Georgia drove to the nearby Subway attached to a gas station for a treat: dinner out. They said grace before digging into a pizza and a taco salad.

When Paige is not in school, Sherry takes her to church activities. She prays that her bubbly girl will stay clear of drugs and other threats.

Paige speaks about going to college someday, but it’s hard for her to imagine what it’s like because no one she knows has been there. “I want to be a nurse, a doctor, an EMT and a therapist person who works with sick kids,” said Paige, a talkative girl with glasses and a dimpled smile. “My hugest dream is to be the first lady who can be president of the United States.”

The board is scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon in Charleston.

The proposal would blend five separate policies on student behavior and safe schools into one, and also incorporate new issues.

If approved, the changes that acknowledge the targeting of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students would go into effect July 1, 2012.

Fairness West Virginia says the policy gives much-needed protection to students and to teachers who want to help them. But conservative groups including the West Virginia Family Foundation call it an attempt to promote a homosexual agenda.

They say bullying is defined by a person’s actions, not the victim’s status.

USPS officials have been considering closing rural post offices and consolidating mail processing centers around the nation in an effort to make cuts. In September, the agency announced a list of rural post offices being considered for closing. It included 150 in West Virginia.

However, the postal service will wait to make any decisions until at least May 15.

In the meantime, postal officials will review the possible impact closing would have on communities and local economies. Nationwide, the USPS is looking at eliminating overnight delivery and closing 3,700 rural post offices and 252 mail processing facilities.

USPS leaders will seek input from residents on the proposals.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said Tuesday’s announcement would temporarily save at least 160 jobs in the Mountain State and maintain critical service for thousands more.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Members of the state School Building Authority awarded Putnam County on Monday with a $1 million grant — and also approved a $1.5 million bond — that will allow the county to build seven new classrooms, restrooms and a sprinkler system at Conner Street Elementary School.
The money allows Putnam County to get rid of all of its portable classrooms, according to the SBA documents.

“If we can get this money, you won’t see me back,” Chuck Hatfield, Putnam County superintendent, told SBA board members. “We would see no need to ask for any additional projects in the near future.”

The West Virginia School Building Authority pledged more than $8 million Monday to fund major school improvement projects in 11 counties.

“I wish there were more money to fund all of these projects,” said Mark Manchin, executive director of the School Building Authority. “But we can only finance a few. We have to look at health and safety for children and how each project furthers education.”

SBA board members considered requests of up to $1 million from 28 county school systems clamoring for a share of the SBA’s $5 million pot for Major Improvement Project grants. School superintendents asked for things such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning repairs, new septic tanks and improvements to crumbling buildings and outdated classrooms.

The SBA also approved:

• $1 million to Preston County for a new gym, cafeteria and classroom improvements, and a new sprinkler system at Bruceton Elementary School

• $894,261 to Fayette County to add two classrooms at Divide Elementary School and replace an aging septic tank, which would allow Fayette County to close Nuttall Middle School

• $879,511 to Boone County to add two classrooms and a set of restrooms at Madison Elementary School

• $800,000 to Jefferson County to renovate a cafeteria and band room at Harpers Ferry Middle School

• $714,646 to Harrison County to build two kindergarten classrooms, expand a dining room and replace a roof at Nutter Fort Elementary School

• $630,323 to Ritchie County for HVAC renovations at Ritchie County Middle/High School

• $226,459 to Mingo County for a new HVAC system at Riverside Elementary School

• $59,405 to Clay County to replace the water storage tank that feeds the fire sprinkler system at Clay High School

SBA members also pledged funds to projects in Taylor and Upshur counties.

Kanawha County’s request for $1 million to build four classrooms at John Adams Middle School was denied.

Schools will have another chance to request SBA funds in April, when the School Building Authority will dole out more than $13 million for needs projects.

On Monday the SBA also approved a change in policy requiring contractors to submit written assurances to local school boards that convicted sex offenders and undocumented workers do not work on school construction projects.

“There is nothing in the state statue that requires you to check somebody’s background to see whether they are a sex offender,” said board member Robert Holroyd. “It simply says sex offenders can’t be around children. So now we have a mechanism that has a contractor certify who their workers are.”

Under the policy change, contractors and subcontractors must sign forms verifying they have approved a valid photo ID for construction workers, received required work forms and performed a sex offender background check on workers.

Manchin said the impact of the policy change would be “significant” in protecting children.

The wording change in the SBA policy will go out for public comment and if approved at the SBA’s next meeting, will go into effect April 1, 2012.

Reach Amy Julia Harris at amy.har…@wvgazette.com or 304-348-4814.