| By Dianne Weaver
"It is unbridled power, super-sizing our community schools," said William Duty, Mingo County school superintendent, following the state board's decision to take over the Mingo school system for the second time in seven years.
Duty has been in the county's fight against closing three high schools and building a new mega-million dollar school on a strip mine site, causing long bus rides for many students.
The three high schools, Williamson, Burch and Matewan, are still considered modern facilities, built in the 70's and 80's.
Williamson High School
Burch High School
Matewan High School - all will be closed down (Hur Herald Photos)
The state Office of Education Performance Audits found that the school system is on the verge of financial collapse, claiming students attend schools that have health and safety hazards and exhibit poor performance.
The state reported at least one-fifth of the state systems are in dire straights financially.
 Duty (pictured left) admitted there are problems within the system, but about 50 of the state's 55 counties have failed to measure up to No Child Left Behind. He says the takeover is about Mingo's resistance to mandated school consolidation - "The state eliminating our community schools."
"No one in their right mind would sign-off on the state's plan. We don't even own the land where they want to build the school. There are so many lose ends it would make your head swim," he said. "It's time to reign in the bureaucrats. The citizens of West Virginia have been rolled-over enough."
Jim Lees, a Charleston attorney hired by Mingo school board, said that he did not understand how the board could be called "dysfunctional" and unable to control county schools."
Lees says the high-powered take-over by state officials is a violation of constitutional law. "It is power-brokering at its worst."
"Beyond a few schools with problems, the county schools meet state standards and aren't that different from audits conducted in other counties," he said. "The board acted prudently by not moving forward with the consolidation plan," adding that Mingo was deemed out of control because new board members who took office in July did not support the consolidation.
The 60-acre site where the new Mingo South High would be constructed is on a coal-mining site and the county has no title. The site has yet to the stripped. State law requires a title or contract of land ownership to exist before a new school is built, said Lees.
Proposed building site is about 10 miles from
the main highway on Red Jacket Mountain (Hur Herald Photos)
The coal company has variously changed the amount of land they want to donate to the school project from 90 to 60 acres. The site is located about 10 miles from a crooked secondary highway on Red Jacket Mountain, with no current access road. The new school would be close to the proposed King Coal Highway, when it is built.
Lees said state education officials are on "a non-stop freight train ... and by gosh you're going to consolidate."
State school superintendent David Stewart has appointed Mingo's current administrator Brenda Skibo to bring the system into accountability, although Skibo was in charge of the system while it allegedly got in trouble. Stewart was given power by the WV legislature to take such action, able to hire and fire school principals and administrators.
Jefferson County school board member Lori Stilley, PhD, said she is concerned about the public policy where the state keeps taking over school systems, a policy promoted by former education chair Lloyd Jackson.
Stilley said "I am concerned that county board members, elected by a majority of people in their county, are stripped of power by appointed state officials."
Senate Majority Leader Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, faulted the Mingo county school board for opposing consolidation without offering a good alternative. Chafin appears to have positioned himself on both sides of the controversial issue, but consolidation opponents say he has been in favor of closing community schools.
"A new school is the nicest place some students go," said Chafin, who indicated when enrollment drops below a threshold, even Distance Learning Centers would not be appropriate.
"They have the big bat," Duty said "We can go to a court of law, lay down and play dead or play with them," he concluded.
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