CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Members of the state School Building Authority will be working with Fayette County school officials over the next year to develop a school construction plan they can fully support, following the authority’s decision Monday to reject the county’s proposal.
“What my question is now is ‘how do we move forward in a very collaborative manner to get results that need to be addressed?'” asked state School Superintendent Dr. Michael Martirano on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
Martirano, a member of the SBA, made a plea to fund the Fayette County school system, but the authority denied the $39 million request to combine four of the county’s five high schools with improvements to other schools.
“I view Fayette County as a top priority for us as a state that needs to be addressed with a level of fierce urgency,” said Martirano. “I have never seen a concentrated area of schools that are in conditions that I define as really bad.”
David Sneed, executive director of the SBA, said there’s still hope for the county. He said the authority wants to fund a project they can trust after SBA members cited several unanswered questions with the plan.
“People in the county, even the superintendent (Terry George), has made statements that perhaps it’s not the best option, but it’s the option they’re going with. We’d like the opportunity to make sure it’s the best option for the county and for the SBA,” Sneed said.
Sneed was also a guest on MetroNews “Talkline.” He said with the limited amount of funding they had, totaling $56 million to distribute, they wanted to be careful with their selections.
“We don’t have the luxury of doing something even if it’s wrong and then finding out later that we’ve spent a lot of money on something that was a bad idea,” he said.
The SBA will now be vetting out all project concerns by working with superintendent Terry George, the state Board of Education and citizens. Sneed said the goal is to revise the plan, so they can support it during next year’s funding cycle.
The current project would have consolidated Fayetteville High School, Oak Hill High School, Midland Trail, and Meadow Bridge High School into a single school in the Oak Hill area. Valley Fayette would remain open.