Published: June 06, 2008 11:52 am      

New Creek resident presents board with copy of home school policy

ROMNEY - William "Butch" Wahl of New Creek followed up the home schoolers' address to the West Virginia State Board of Education Wednesday by presenting the state officials Thursday with a copy of the proposed policy at the center of the controversy.

The state board of education met both days at the West Virginia High School for the Deaf in Romney.

On Wednesday, home school supporters Joy Baker and Bretta Spencer, both of Keyser, appealed to the board to not only intervene with the proposed policy regulating home school instruction, but also to investigate the actions of Superintendent of Schools Skip Hackworth that led up to the policy being introduced to the Mineral County board in May.

Calling Hackworth "a dictator," Spencer said the issues with the county superintendent "go far beyond" the home school issue.

Thursday, Wahl said he got involved in the home school issue when he was running for a seat on the local board, and although he lost his bid for election, he has continued to have unanswered questions about the issue.

"This policy seemed to grow out of nothing," he said. "I realize the superintendent and board can adopt policies as they wish, but this policy seems to have no foundation."

His main concerns with the proposed policy, he said, center around the fact that home-schooled students who attend public school classes would not receive a letter grade. Instead, their classes would be classified as an "S" for satisfactory or "U" for unsatisfactory.

Home-schooled students attending public classes would also be placed in a separate, nongraded home room.

"I feel this amounts to segregation and basically brands these students with a scarlet letter," he said.

"It is punishing these students for the actions of their parents, who chose to educate them at home.

"How would you feel?" he asked State Superintendent of Schools Steven Paine and the members of the board, "if your efforts got you to the top of the list and those efforts just got an 'S'?"

Wahl asked the board to look into the proposed policy "and do what you can for the home schoolers."

State board president Delores Cook told Wahl, as she had told Baker and Spencer the day before, that the board could not take any action on their requests on that day.

"But your comments will be taken into consideration at a later time," she said.

According to the West Virginia Sunshine Law, a governing body may not take action on any item not on the meeting agenda.

Liza Cordeiro, executive director of the board's office of communications, said the item would be placed on a future agenda for discussion and/or action.

Contact Liz Beavers at lbeavers@times-news.com.