Simple! Stop sending children to those schools!
Why is there an assumption by the Board of Education members and the administrative staff at the central office that the children at Charles Pointe must go to the current Bridgeport schools? The state has spent millions of dollars the past few years improving two east to west roads that makes it easier to travel from I-79 over to US Rt19 at Meadowbrook and Shinnston.
Send these children to Shinnston. MeadowBrook Rd and Saltwell Rd are partially 4 lane roads. Do you think it is too far for these children to travel? Look at a county map. The distance from Charles Pointe to Shinnston is less than half the distance we require the children from Rinehart, Wallace, Brown and places in-between to travel to Shinnston. They have been doing it for years since their schools have been closed. And over roads that are much worse. Is there any reason why the wealthy families of Charles Pointe can’t enjoy the same travel benefits afforded to the rest of the county’s youths? And that would also be great motivation to ensure a healthy upper-middle class parental interest in the improvement in the schools across the county.
Let’s stop treating the wealthy differently just because they are wealthy. And let’s stop taxing everyone just to ensure their convenience. If not going to Bridgeport schools makes Charles Pointe a less desirable place to live then let’s talk about the significance that a school contributes in making a neighborhood a more desirable place to live.
Charles Pointe is no more entitled to their own neighborhood school than the multiple communities within the county that have lost their neighborhood schools in the past 15 years in the name of consolidation. Charles Pointe is coming late to the party. Make them go to the back of the line to get our school dollars. Let them go to Shinnston.
If there is “free money” from the state, as Board of Education member, Mike Queen is fond of saying, then let Charles Pointe go to the back of the line in this county. Lumberport needs and deserves a school in Lumberport. Lumberport should get it before a rich developer jumps the line to grab more of the community wealth to be used only to enhance the value of the property he wants to sell.
There are other over-crowding needs. Nutter Fort Grade School has 1200 kids in it. But wait. The School Board introduces a fiction and claims that there are really two schools in one, so neither school is over crowded with 600 kids. Play the same game with Johnson and Simpson. Tell the parents there that you are going to divide the children in two groups, hire an additional principal and voila! You now have two schools and neither are over-crowded. But they will soon figure out that the physical space is the same.
Filed under: Board of Education, Charles Pointe, Charles Pointe and Schools, Economic Development, Education of Children, Elected Officials, School Bond, TIF
These arrogant selfish peeps on our School Board should all be voted OUT OUT OUT. They’re in bed with types they think are “bery bery important people”. They all appear to have different motivations. Some money. Some “power”..omg! Wonder if they bothered to read the Charleston Gazette today? The Gazette said that WV’s kids are the dumbest in the Country. Fancy that! With these imbeciles running around trying to cut deals with developers and their bond merchants, there is no time left to fool with a little detail like academics. Damn, it makes me mad. Everybody else I talk to also.