Educators voice concerns over legislative review of school law - Huntington Herald Dispatch

HUNTINGTON — A legislative task force will look closely at the code that dictates school law in West Virginia, but some school employees are uneasy about the unintended consequences of opening up the code for changes.

Educators and local legislators took part in a town hall discussion earlier centered on changes to chapter 18 and 18a of the W.Va. State Code, which governs free and public education in the state, that could be introduced during the next legislative session.

Former Del. Joshua Higginbotham, R-Putnam, was appointed as the chairman of the task force and was joined by current House of Delegates members Sean Hornbuckle and Chad Lovejoy, both D-Cabell, and Matthew Rohrbach and Evan Worrell, both R-Cabell, on Tuesday at the Cabell County Schools Central Office.

Cabell County Schools allowed the use of its facility to conduct the town hall, but it did not organize or sponsor the event.

Higginbotham recently stepped down from his position in the House of Delegates after moving from Putnam to Kanawha County, and therefore out of the district he was elected to represent. He said he will continue to help lead the task force as it was a job he started.

School employees who were present at the town hall and union representatives who spoke on behalf of others expressed their concerns that opening up the code might lead to an education overhaul that isn’t needed by legislators they don’t trust.

“It’s always a concern when you open up that code because no matter how you open it up, even with good intentions at the beginning, you always run the risk of something happening and things being put in there that, in our view, hurt public education,” said Tega Toney, vice president of American Federation-Teachers (AFT) West Virginia.

Higginbotham maintained that the purpose of the task force was not to introduce major changes in policy but to clean out and simplify the code, which he believes is outdated, in part, and restricts some of what teachers are allowed to do in classrooms.

“I think for the most part the Legislature understands the purpose of this task force, and if anybody wants to make those significant policy changes that might be detrimental to public education, they can try something like that, but I will fight it,” Higginbotham said.

A similar town hall was held in Charleston earlier this year, one that quickly turned into educators and union representatives voicing their opinions on items within the code that needed changed, not removed, during the upcoming session.

The same happened in Cabell County, with topics like help for teachers dealing with trauma in the classroom, reduced class sizes, increased planning time and wages.

Hornbuckle said while no major policy changes are on the table for public education, it is always important to know what the people he represents are concerned with.

“Understandably so, a lot of people are uneasy about what could happen if we open up that code, and so I wanted to make sure that as we prioritize the needs for public education, our people were able to voice those needs,” Hornbuckle said.

Hornbuckle added that he did not vote in favor of the task force being formed, but he will continue to fight for what is best for public education in the state.

source: https://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/educators-voice-concerns-over-legislative-review-of-school-law/article_6945dae6-713d-5fe8-bca0-5e6fa35e0b64.html

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