Gov. Patrick Morrisey agreed his administration wants to work with state schools officials about education funding and regulatory relief.
“Without a doubt,” Morrisey said at a press conference.
State education officials have sounded an alarm for the coming school year, saying more school closures seem likely in counties around the state.
The state has lost 5,000 students since the last enrollment count, equivalent to six counties, state school board officials said last week.
Department of Education officials say they’re already aware of eight to 10 schools around the state in line for closure in the coming year — although the number could be up to 20.
COMMENTARY by DAVE WILSON: Alarms continue to sound over future of public education.
Over the past few years, West Virginia has already experienced a wave of public school closures and consolidations, driven by declining student enrollment, financial deficits and departures of students taking advantage of new educational options.
During the most recent legislative session, lawmakers considered various options for bolstering school funds, but nothing passed.
In a meeting with reporters last week, state school board President Paul Hardesty, a former state senator, expressed frustration about the lack of action.
Hardesty sent a letter Feb. 17 to Morrisey and legislative leaders, describing challenges ranging from student achievement to teacher shortages and teacher allocation issues. Hardesty has also consistently talked about the need to withdraw aspects of regulations in the public school system.
“It is past time to cast blame,” Hardesty wrote in that letter. “Our only solution is for all parties to come together, acknowledge these fatal flaws in the system and work on a comprehensive overhaul of the system that supports public education.”
Morrisey today agreed it’s necessary to work on some of those issues.
“In fact, in a couple areas, I know that I’ve talked internally to our staff about the importance from a regulatory perspective to address some of the issues that the school board has raised, because I do want the public school system to succeed and succeed wildly,” Morrisey said in response to a question by reporter Steven Allen Adams of the Ogden Newspapers.
“And there are a lot of items, you know — now the school board had created a lot of that through the regulations over the years — but we have a chance to actually determine which ones are going to require the legislative changes, which ones are going to require the other regulatory changes.”
The governor added, “Most certainly the regulations also add to the cost, so when we want to look at money and resources, we have to look at all issues, including what are some of the needless costs. What got us to this point?”
Lawmakers have continued to discuss changes that need to be made.
“We need to do it sooner rather than later,” Senate Education Chairwoman Amy Nichole Grady, R-Mason, said last week on MetroNews Talkline.
“That’s the problem, is it’s taken too long. I think the goal is there. Everybody understands that there is a need, but how everybody sees that need is different. And that’s the biggest problem, is we need to get everybody on the same page.”
Speaking on “Radio Roundtable” on WJLS-AM, Senator Brian Helton laid much of the blame on state education officials.
“These schools are being managed by an extremely expensive top-heavy bureaucratic group like Paul Hardesty that are just doing a terrible job, they’ve been doing a terrible job, and they continue to point the finger at everywhere else,” said Helton, R-Raleigh, on the Beckley radio program.
“My mom always taught me when you point the finger at somebody who’s three pointing back at you, there’s about 10 pointing back at State Board of Education.”
Helton continued with additional criticisms of state education officials, although some of the issues he raised could be addressed by county school systems or by the Legislature.
“They never lay off, they never cut back, they never look at the fact we have 55 counties when we should have like 12 regions. They continue to spend, spend, spend, and we are funding in West Virginia bureaucracy instead of that money funding education for our students. We continue to be the last place, they continue to fail, and then they whine and complain and moan every time they shut a school down.
“They need to start doing things like regular businesses do, and other entities, when things aren’t going well: Let’s start cutting at the top, and let’s look at a better way to run the business, instead of complaining about everybody else that we can’t meet our numbers.”
When legislators pass a law, agencies like the state Department of Education have to formulate regulations to fill out the detail. Helton blamed state education officials for too aggressively wielding regulatory authority.
“This state board we have piles so much junk on their jobs, that’s all they do. That’s all they do is report to the board, and the reason they’re doing that is there’s too many people there to board, so they’re all looking for something to do, so they bug the daylights out of teachers, create these regulations where they can’t actually focus on students,” he said.