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West Side Schools Funding Possible; Options May Give Kanawha Board Roadmap to Build

Posted on: Thursday, 15 December 2005, 00:00 CST

By Eric Eyre

ericeyre@wvgazette.com West Virginia School Building Authority leaders have provided a roadmap for securing state money to build two elementary schools on Charlestons West Side. But whether a majority of Kanawha County school board members will follow the plan is anybodys guess. Earlier this week, authority board members rejected Kanawha Countys $18 million plan to build two elementary schools. After the meeting, some authority board members and agency Executive Director Clacy Williams outlined two options that would give Kanawha County a good chance of getting money for the schools in the future. The best plan: Request $6.5 million for a new school in Charlestons West Side flats area next year, and ask for another $6.5 million to build a second school in the West Side hills in 2007. Option two: Ask for money for both schools next year, but ask for about $13 million not $18 million. You just dont go to somebody with your hand out and ask for more money than they know they can give you, Williams said Tuesday. This is a good project. Its just not ready to fund

. Kanawha County school officials have eyed land for both new schools. Most board members want to build one elementary school on the former Cabell school site at Florida Street and Kanawha Boulevard. School administrators are considering Cato Park for the second school. Kanawha schools Superintendent Ron Duerring already has toured the site. The school would be built on an existing soccer field at Cato. The site has plenty of parking, and theres a public pool and nature trails nearby. I cant think of a better setting for a grade school, said Charleston City Manager David Molgaard. Its a win-win for the West Side. Kanawha Countys chances to secure state money for the West Side projects would improve if school board members agree to chip in some money, authority members said. The school system ends most years with a multimillion-dollar surplus. But Kanawha board members have declined to earmark future excess funds for West Side schools. The authority distributes money for school construction statewide each December. The School Building Authority is not going to give us enough money to fully build two schools, said Bill Raglin, a Kanawha school board member. They have never given us enough money in the history of the SBA to build a school properly. Williams said other counties build quality schools with the money the authority provides. School leaders from those counties unlike Kanawha County dont complain, he said. If they dont like the building we provide, then they need to come up with their own money, and we can still make it work, Williams said. Kanawha school board member Pete Thaw supports requesting state money for a single West Side school each of the next two years. But he strongly opposes setting aside local money to build schools. The taxpayers of this county have paid enough, Thaw said Tuesday. Duerring and most Kanawha County school board members initially supported building a single large $11 million school on the West Side flats. That plan called for closing Watts, Glenwood, J.E. Robbins and Chandler elementary schools. They scrapped that plan after West Side residents demanded two schools. The School Building Authority distributed $67 million to 25 counties Monday. Authority members passed over Kanawha County, even though the two- school project ranked as the fifth-best proposal in the state this year under the agencys formula. Thirty-five of West Virginias 55 counties requested state school construction money.

Source: Charleston Gazette, The

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