Charleston Gazette

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Drug testing middle and high school students has plenty of pitfalls that area educators should consider, some anti-testing advocates say. Area school board members say the tests are simply meant to attack the "menace" of drug use in schools.

Graduates Arnold Hiller and Tarynn Skees eagerly await the next stage of their education.

Karl Priest
THE MOVIE "EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed" (now playing at Marquee Cinemas-Southridge) is not an adventure like the upcoming "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Rather, "EXPELLED" is an excellent documentary that exposes "Evolutionists and their Kingdom of the Dark Skull."

Karl Priest
"This failure to prepare the next generation for tomorrow's challenges threatens our nation's economic and civic health." Those are not the words of a fundamentalist conservative. They come from none other than the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

A vast array of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Pay raises and tax cuts dominated the final hours of the 2008 regular session of the Legislature, which ended at midnight Sunday. On the final day, legislators approved a $1,600 across-the-board pay raise to teachers, along with $700 raises to school personnel (SB573).

Becky Jordon is tired of students' profane language, drug use and disruptive clothes. The Kanawha County school board member said she wants local educators to curb a lack of respect for authority.

Every year, it costs more to build a school in West Virginia. Officials with the state School Building Authority want to encourage efficiency in design, so the state can build more schools and stretch your tax dollars even further.

Your proposal is not enough. Members of the West Virginia Education Association sent that message to Gov. Joe Manchin Monday.

The head of the committee investigating whether West Virginia University manufactured a degree for Gov. Joe Manchin’s daughter left the panel Tuesday, a day after WVU’s faculty said he should. More people will be added to the committee, a move that one WVU official said will slow down the investigation.

At-risk students in alternative schooling, such as Mountaineer ChalleNGe, eligible Students who earn their GED while attending the Mountaineer ChalleNGe Academy will remain eligible for the Promise Scholarship.

MORGANTOWN — The deputy director of a West Virginia academy says a proposed change to a college scholarship program aimed at closing a loophole that no one has used would unfairly disqualify the school’s at-risk students.

News report questions if MBA was earned
The chancellor of the state Higher Education Policy Commission said he would meet with West Virginia University officials in January concerning a disputed MBA degree for Gov. Joe Manchin’s daughter.

One way to draw teachers to the state is for the state not to draw taxes on them. That’s one lawmaker’s idea in the run-up to a legislative session that promises high volume wheeling and dealing for teacher salaries and new incentives to attract more qualified professionals to the state.

Stacy Calhoun is one of many Sissonville parents that have waited a long time for this day. “When you first walk in, it’s breathtaking,” she said of the new Sissonville Middle School. “Especially coming from the older building.”