A nonprofit law firm has taken the next step toward suing the West Virginia Board of Education and the state School Building Authority over an alleged lack of adequate funding for the Fayette County school system, which is currently dealing with shuttered school buildings.
"The West Virginia Constitution, and the laws of this State, guarantee to each child an equal shot at a thorough and efficient education - regardless of whether a child may reside in a wealthier county with a large population, or in a less populous, rural, low-income county, such as Fayette," wrote Mountain State Justice attorney Sam Petsonk in a notice that's legally required at least 30 days before suing a West Virginia governing agency.
Mountain State Justice, which has offices in Charleston and Clarksburg, sent the notice Friday to Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, state school board President Mike Green, SBA Executive Director David Sneed and SBA board Chairman Peter Markham.
"The SBA and [state school board] have now failed to honor that fundamental guarantee to the children and families of Fayette County for many, many years," the notice states. "... Our clients have been negatively affected and stand to suffer further harm to the educational, nutritional, and health-related needs of their children, and to the vitality of the local economy ... and the property values in their communities."
The state school board, whose members are appointed by West Virginia's governor, took over Fayette's school system from its locally elected school board in 2010. That move followed a state Office of Education Performance Audits report that noted problems in academics, facilities and other areas in Fayette schools.
"A member or members of the board have been unwilling to deal with the very small high schools and support a plan to combine some and improve severe facility deficiencies, limited curriculum, and poorly achieving schools," the OEPA report stated.
Mountain State Justice's notice said the litigation will be filed on behalf of the Fayette County Commission and "affected citizens," but doesn't specify whom. Petsonk declined to tell a Gazette-Mail reporter who was funding the lawsuit or who the affected citizens were, though he said the law suit will spell out specific facts regarding individual clients and name them.
In February, the Fayette commission voted unanimously to set aside $15,000 for a possible lawsuit against the SBA, said Commissioner Matt Wender, who said then that the money would only be used if it could be matched with $15,000 in private funds. He said he hoped then that the lawsuit wouldn't be necessary and said it could be avoided if the county and the SBA - which distributes state general revenue, bond proceeds and lottery money for school construction and renovation projects around West Virginia - could come to an agreement on how to fix issues with Fayette's school buildings.
The SBA generally gets annual funding requests from school systems that vastly exceed its available grant dollars, so its board must choose which projects to fund.
In December, the SBA's board refused to provide $39.6 million for a controversial plan that would have, among other things, built a new Fayette high school and closed four current high schools, allowing students from Collins Middle to move into the current Oak Hill High building. The Oak Hill High building would've become a new fifth- through eighth-grade school.
The push for the consolidation came after State Schools Superintendent Michael Martirano abruptly ordered Collins Middle's seventh- and eighth-grade building closed last school year due to structural issues, forcing the Fayette school system to relocate about 400 students to county high schools.
The SBA board originally voted not to even consider funding Fayette's consolidation plan, but it ended up officially considering it - and, ultimately, denying funding - under pressure from a previous Mountain State Justice lawsuit. The county commission also backed that litigation.
Sneed said the state school board and SBA staff are currently working together to develop a new plan to fix Fayette's facilities issues that will be presented to the SBA board for funding approval near the end of this calendar year. Petsonk said his clients welcome collaboration, but because such planning processes have happened in Fayette before and haven't resulted in SBA funding, litigation is necessary to ensure "funding is allocated in proportion to the neediest plans."
"The SBA has created another planning process which essentially seems to bring no guarantee of funding," Penstonk said.
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