KINGWOOD — The Preston County Board of Education will publish information about a charter school coming to the area, as required by law.
John Treu, president of West Virginia Academy, spoke to the board at its regular meeting Monday, following up on a letter he sent Dec. 3, which asks the board to follow West Virginia law and “publicize information to parents and the community ‘to the same extent and through the same means’ as your non charter public schools.”
As of the meeting, the school system’s website did not have any information about the charter school and was not in compliance, Treu said. He asked the board take the steps needed to do so at its meeting Monday because preregistration for the school closes Dec. 15.
“And if notice isn’t provided to families the charter school exists, and you don’t update your website to reflect that, then some families won’t have the opportunity to pre-register and that would be a detriment to families who are interested in the charter school,” Treu said.
The board voted to go into executive session for legal advice. The executive session lasted about 15 minutes and after, board president Jack Keim said the board had directed superintendent Stephen Wotring “to follow the same protocol with the charter school that he does with all the other schools in the county.”
Treu told The Dominion Post he was happy with the board’s decision to follow the law and he’s looking forward to letting more families know about the school.
West Virginia Academy will be opening in fall 2022 and Treu said the Bruceton Mills area is part of its primary recruiting area. He said busing would be available.
This week, West Preston and Aurora schools are mandating masks. Wotring gave an update on COVID-19 during the superintendent’s report.
Prior to Thanksgiving week, when there was still a mask mandate, the system had 36 positive cases and 72 students quarantined. Last week – the first week back – no school had a mask mandate and there were 42 positive cases with 107 students in quarantine. On Monday, there were nine positive cases and 25 quarantines, Wotring said.
He said they knew without mask usage, quarantine numbers would go up, which is why there were more than usual.
“I think this week will be a little bit more telling because we’re two weeks out from Thanksgiving to see if that’s gonna cause a huge spike in our numbers in school, but I won’t know that until Friday,” Wotring said.
TWEET @DominionPostWV
