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Editorial

No cash, no plans. No wonder W.Va. microschool failed

If alternative K-12 education is the new frontier, then West Virginia is the Wild West. In early March, “The 74” broke the story of The Hive Learning Academy — a microschool in Martinsburg that opened its doors in August and had closed them by November, leaving students and families floundering. We won’t paint The Hive’s founders as financial predators or villains; it seems the two moms had their hearts in the right place, but they had neither a solid business plan nor the cash flow to get their microschool off the ground and keep it running. They had banked on ...

Auditorium at MHS looking for second act

If you thought you heard a great cry resounding through the Force last week (apologies to George Lucas), it was probably the over two-decades worth of former Morgantown High theater kids shouting, “Finally!” Because the MHS Foundation announced it will be turning its fundraising efforts to renovating the high school’s auditorium. The grand entryway at street level, with its glittering chandeliers, greeted thousands of parents, extended family, friends and community members to see what magic the spirited, dedicated students could create. The well-trod boards held sure and ...

Editorial Encore: Project 2025: A plan to destroy democracy

EDITOR'S NOTE: This editorial is adapted from one that ran Sept. 8, 2023. “Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials ...  the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One … to gut the ‘administrative state’ from within, by ousting federal employees they [Trump-era Republicans] believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials … The goal is to avoid the pitfalls of Trump’s first years in office, when … policies were met with ...

The Good, the Bad and the Stupid 8

Good: HB 5516 — “prohibiting the use of deep fake images for the nonconsensual disclosure of private intimate images; prohibiting the unlawful depiction of nude or partially nude minors or minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.” Similar to the bills on child porn, this one makes it illegal to manipulate images to make it appear a real person doing or saying something they are not, specifically in the context of sexual activity, then sharing those images or videos. Think “revenge porn,” except that, while the person depicted is real, the images aren’t. Bad: HB ...

Improving relations between the police and the community

Morgantown Police Chief Eric Powell recently said he’s looking to foster a change in officers’ attitudes moving forward. “There’s lots of issues right now with our department when it comes to professionalism and how they treat people and how they talk to people, and I’m in the process of addressing that right now. They’re not using de-escalation techniques … I don’t want that to be how we operate.” That’s a step in the right direction, and we applaud Powell for his willingness not only to acknowledge these issues, but to work on addressing them. There’s been ...

W.Va. didn’t fund education. Now it can’t make a budget

There’s a special irony in the West Virginia Legislature calling for a national constitutional convention over fiscal responsibility when the state can’t even pass a full budget this session because it faces a possible $465 million clawback of federal COVID funds. Over the last several years, West Virginia, like many other states, has been drawing millions of dollars from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund. The important caveat on these dollars was that spending on education had to remain proportional to what it was before the pandemic, in ...