The fight over school consolidation in Nicholas County continues. The West Virginia Board of Education, which is against consolidation, released a statement Thursday saying they’ll appeal their case to the West Virginia Supreme Court.
After the devastation caused by the June 2016 flood, there’s been an ongoing and contentious debate over school consolidation in Nicholas County. The Nicholas County School Board is seeking to merge two middle schools, two high schools, and a vocational school all into one campus near Summersville. Damage from last year’s flood closed Richwood Middle, Richwood High and Summersville Middle schools.
Several students, teachers, and residents in Richwood have fought against the county board’s plan to consolidate.
Last month, the West Virginia Board of Education voted against consolidation in Nicholas County for the second time.
Recently, the case went before Kanawha County circuit judge Duke Bloom, who sided with the Nicholas County School Board, and said the state board acted “arbitrarily.”
Now, the West Virginia Board of Education has released a statement saying they are appealing the circuit court’s ruling. According to Kristin Anderson, communications director for the State Board of Education, an attorney with the WV Attorney General’s Office will appeal the case with the West Virginia Supreme Court Friday morning.
The West Virginia Board of Education has voted a second time against consolidating schools in Nicholas County.
The vote came one day before a court hearing in a lawsuit against the state over the first vote.
Members of the state Board of Education voted 6 to 1 Monday to refuse to accept a consolidation plan approved earlier by the Nicholas County Board of Education.
It’s the second state board vote on the issue. The first came on June 13 and was followed by the filing of a lawsuit.
In that suit, Nicholas County board members claim the state arbitrarily denied the consolidation plan. That’s why state board President Tom Campbell said the board took a second vote on Monday– to clarify its decision.
But Campbell said his board still wants to work with Nicholas County.
“We tried to offer to expedite a plan with the School Building Authority president, me and the president of the Nicholas County board and they said no,” Campbell said after the vote.
“So, I’d just like to see more cooperation and less distance from the people who are affected by the decision.”
The consolidation plan presented to the state would combine five schools all onto one campus in the Summersville area – Richwood High and Middle Schools, Summersville Middle, Nicholas County High School, and the county’s vocational school.
Richwood High and Middle and Summersville Middle were all damaged during the June 2016 flooding that devastated much of southern and central West Virginia. The schools have not been reopened.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Duke Bloom will hear arguments in the case Tuesday morning.
Several communities in West Virginia were devastated during the 1,000 Year Flood that hit June 2016. Many families lost everything – their homes, their belongings, their livelihoods. Some of those communities even lost their school buildings.
The West Virginia Department of Education reported 27 public school buildings suffered flood damage, and five were closed.
The school board in Nicholas County plans to consolidate several schools including Richwood Middle and Richwood High School. The plan has been met with passionate opposition from residents.
Despite the debate about consolidation, the 2017 school year came and went. West Virginia Public Broadcasting recently visited the town of Richwood to see what this past year was like for both students and the community.
For the 2016-2017 school year, the students at Richwood Middle and High School attended classes at temporary locations.
Richwood High students spent the year at former Beaver Elementary School in Craigsville – almost a 30-minute drive away.
Recent graduate Kendra Amick says it was disheartening to learn she wouldn’t be in her old building for her senior year.
“It was hard,” Amick said, “I mean, when they told me over the summer that the school was flooded and that we weren’t going to be going back there, it was really heartbreaking, and I don’t think any of us really believed it, but being thrown in Beaver was kind of rough. The teachers made sure that it was more like a home environment, but I know all of us would just much rather be back up at Richwood and where we all belong.”
Despite the change of location, Amick remained committed to her high school band, also known as the Lumberjack Express. The band had to scavenge for places to practice throughout the year. But when it came time for the annual festivals and parades, there was no doubt the community could rely on the Lumberjack Express to show up.
Amick performed in the marching band for the last time during this year’s spring concert.
“The community of Richwood really loves the band,” Amick noted, “That’s one of the cornerstones of our town is seeing us march down every fall in orange, and we always have an annual Christmas concert as well as a spring concert, so to get the community back together, rain or shine today, it’s really nice to see everyone come out, get to hear the band, and have a little bit of hope.”
The Lumberjack Express is a staple of the town, says Richwood Middle School Principal Gene Collins.
“It’s not just the high school’s band, it is the community’s band,” he said.
Collins says the Lumberjack Express played a big role in helping students and the community to cope with the change. While traditions had to be compromised and the stability of the community was disrupted, the Lumberjack Express provided a familiar tone that helped the town hold onto its identity … and perhaps hold onto the spirit of Richwood.
“Everything we do, we have a huge turnout,” Collins said, “We have so much support. People are trying to make sure that we survive, and let’s face it, in the mountains, that’s what everything is about. It is about survival. They want the best for their kids, but we’re also fighting for our culture to survive.”
That community spirit and school pride shined bright across the state this past year. In fact, Herbert Hoover High School was another building that was closed after the flood. Despite not having a home gym, the Huskies made it to the state high school basketball tournament for the first time ever.
A Nicholas County judge has declined to immediately stop the controversial plan to consolidate five Nicholas County public schools into two schools that share a single campus following a flood last year.
Judge James Rowe on Thursday denied a preliminary injunction that had been requested by supporters of rebuilding Richwood’s flood-damaged schools in the Richwood area instead of consolidating them into a single campus near Summersville.
Rowe did, however, agree to an injunction blocking the immediate demolition of Richwood Middle and High School.
The judge scheduled a May 10 hearing after which he still may rule to stop the consolidation based on the lawsuit’s allegations that the Nicholas board violated open meetings laws before voting in favor of the plan Tuesday.
Superintendent Donna Burge-Tetrick denies the allegations.
On September 7, 1955, the great fiddler Edden Hammons died at age 80. The Pocahontas County native was part of an extended family known for its music and…
On September 7, 1955, the great fiddler Edden Hammons died at age 80. The Pocahontas County native was part of an extended family known for its music and traditional ways.
The family had migrated into the Webster-Pocahontas county area just before the Civil War.
In 1947, Edden Hammons was recorded by folklorist and West Virginia University professor Louis Chappell in a Richwood hotel room. The resulting 52 tunes document a frontier fiddling tradition with links to the Old World. Here’s a sample:
edden_hammons_-_digging_potatoes.mp3
Edden Hammons, Digging Potatoes
Most of these tunes were later released as record albums by West Virginia University Press. These 52 tunes are the only known recordings of the great Edden Hammons.
FEMA– the Federal Emergency Management Agency– is well known for its individual housing assistance program- a federal program that helps homeowners and renters who have lost their housing and belongings in natural disasters, but the agency has another program that helps states and local governments rebuild.
The application deadline for FEMA’s public assistance program was Monday and many small communities throughout the state are dependent on those funds after June’s historic flooding.
Richwood, W.Va.
In the Cherry River just outside of Richwood, a concrete dam creates a small waterfall. The water flows over the dam, down massive, sand colored rocks and fills two crystal clear swimming holes. The scene is idyllic, but the sound is not so ideal.
Behind the dam is a massive metal pipe that served as the intake for Richwood’s public drinking water system. But that pipe was damaged in late June when heavy rains caused large rocks to rush down the river. Those waters later flooded many parts of Richwood. Now, a temporary pump sits next to one swimming hole, pumping water to the city’s taps.
“We’re going to get another one that’s boxed,” Richwood Mayor Bob Henry Baber explained over the noise of the pump, “and also that might take us through the winter because this one won’t and we’re not sure how fast we’re going to get this fixed up here on the intake.”
Baber estimates his town in total suffered more than $15 million in damage to public infrastructure and government buildings, but the loss of both the Richwood Middle and High Schools will make the total much higher.
Clendenin, W.Va.
But it’s not just Richwood that suffered millions of dollars in damage to public infrastructure. Gary Bledsoe is the Mayor of Clendenin in Kanawha County.
Credit Ashton Marra / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Clendenin Mayor Gary Bledsoe speaks with FEMA PIO Tom Kempton just a week after heavy rains caused historic flooding in his town.
“It could be pushing as high as $2 million. It’s well over a million now with just what we’ve turned in so far,” Bledsoe said.
That money will be needed for repairs to road slips, the restoration of its community rec center, and rehabilitation of the first floor of city hall. For now, the mayor’s office is in a garage around the corner.
FEMA’s Public Assistance Program
Communities like Richwood and Clendenin can’t pay for those repairs on their own, though. Both mayors say after June’s floods they’re not sure how they’re even going to make payroll through the end of the year, let alone replace a $250,000 rec center. That’s where FEMA’s Public Assistance program comes in.
“Public Assistance is to repair the public infrastructure, those large items that particularly in this disaster such as schools, bridges, roads, the infrastructure that’s been so severely hit in this state because of the flooding,” FEMA Public Information Officer Tom Kempton explained.
So far, the total damage to roads and bridges in flood affected counties is estimated at more than $54 million by the Department of Transportation.
The West Virginia School Building Authority says a new high school costs around $30 million and a new middle or elementary school from $5-10 million. At least five schools in two counties have been closed as a result of the storm.
Credit Kara Lofton / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Cleaning equipment sits outside the entrance to Richwood High School which will not reopen this fall.
Kempton explained it’s these types of infrastructure and public needs that will quickly escalate the total price of recovery. Through the public assistance program, FEMA will pay 75 percent of the cost for public projects. Normally, the state matches with 25 percent, but Governor Tomblin has asked the federal government to bump the match up to 90/10.
Tomblin representatives said last week total damage estimates must reach more than $250 million before FEMA will grant the higher matching rate, but Kempton said West Virginia’s economic climate will also play a role in that decision.
“If you look at the kind of damage within, say Kanawha County where they have a large range of very expensive projects, schools that have been pretty much destroyed, those are going to be prioritized and does the county have that match?” he said.
“Can the county come up with 35 percent of the cost to redo all those facilities? That’d be very difficult for even a wealthy county to do.”
Restoration
Many of the flood affected communities were struggling with insufficient infrastructure and public buildings before the storm. Mayor Baber said that was certainly the case with his sewer system.
Credit Ashton Marra / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Richwood Mayor Bob Henry Baber surveys the damage to a home a hillside collapsed into after heavy rains.
FEMA has been clear- they will pay to restore damaged infrastructure, leaving communities with something equal to what they had before, but Baber worries that won’t be enough.
“What does that mean when you’ve got a system that’s so antiquated? I mean, we’re putting patches on patches on patches so this is hard to know what’s going to happen here,” Baber said.
“We’ve reached the point where I just don’t know how many more patches we can put on patches. How many more band aids can you put on band aids when you’re hemorrhaging?”
The deadline for communities to file for public assistance through FEMA was Monday, August 8.
State revenue officials say even if West Virginia does not receive the 90/10 match from FEMA for those projects, there is enough cash in the Rainy Day Fund to help struggling communities recover.
