[NFBWV-Talk] FW: Article from Hampshire Review News Section 2021 09 01

[Karen Swauger]

karen

Original Message: 
From: NFB-NEWSLINE Online <publications at nfbnewsline.net>
To: Karen Swauger <karen at pmpmail.com>
Subject: Article from Hampshire Review News Section 2021 09 01
Date: 
1 Sep 2021 13:03:59 -0500

(Un)covering WVSDB. I dont write often about our efforts to put together
the news  other than to brag once a year when weve been honored for our
work. 

Generally, I think readers are a lot more interested in the story (or
photo) itself than the hoops we had to jump through to get that news to
you. Thats our burden, not yours. 

But a story has been evolving this summer thats of vital importance to
our community and of interest to so many people here. 

Covering it has been nigh on impossible thanks to the public employees
who are at the center of it. 

The West Virginia Department of Education has seemingly gone out of its
way to avoid answering questions about its intervention at the West
Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind in any kind of timely manner. 

You should be concerned. Im concerned and frustrated. 

My tale of woe and intrigue has a good opening chapter on July 30, a
Friday, when the brass from Charleston rolled into Romney to tout the grand
opening of the Technical Assistance Center on the WVSDB campus. 

It truly is good news for Romney and the school. I was there along with
about 70 other people, and an upside to the moment (I thought) was I was
introduced to Christy Day, the Department of Educations communications
director, and Matt Hicks, who is heading up the team from Charleston thats
leading the overhaul. 

I thought I had the opportunity to set up contacts for ongoing coverage
of the story. 

You see, I believe that the rest of the state  people in Charleston or
Elkins or Weirton  care about this story of an intervention of WVSDB in
broad brushstrokes. They want to know that its happening, a sense of why
and a sum up of the big changes when its all over. 

But here in Hampshire, I told Day and Hicks, here we care about this
story on a week-in, week-out basis. If work is being shifted from one
building to another, we have workers who want to know that  along with
their relatives, neighbors and friends. 

This is an ongoing story of massive change at the countys 3rd-largest
employer, a 150-year-old institution that in many ways has defined Romneys
personality. 

So I asked if Day and Hicks could identify a person here who could talk
with me on an ongoing basis and be a source for weekly coverage. 

I wanted this because nobody at WVSDB  nobody  was talking to me. Phone
calls went unanswered; so did emails. I still dont know if the campus
leadership was just scared to talk or directed not to. 

But what Christy Day told me on July 30 was to submit questions to her
via email and she would get them answered and back to me. 

So I did, with a list of questions on Aug. 5 to give her plenty of time
to get me responses before our Aug. 11 issue. Only she didnt didnt get me
answers or even respond in any way to acknowledge that I had sent
questions. 

So I tried again the next week with new questions, and the same lack of
results. 

And the next. Ditto. Only this time I ccd her boss, Clayton Burch. 

Four weeks in, I sent a new list of questions to Day and Burch. I finally
got my 1st reply from Day. It was an automatically generated message that
she was out of the office and to send pressing inquiries to her assistant
director, Megan Archer. 

And do you know what? Megan Archer got back to me within 24 hours with
responses to all my current questions and requests as well as from the 3
previous weeks. 

Which, I noted in a pretty direct reply to her, that if she could do that
so easily what a shame it was that her office had been unable or unwilling
to do so for the 3 weeks before that. 

Their lack of response singlehandedly undermined the effort to report
with authority whats happening on the 75 acres in the middle of Romney 
whats happening by public appointed officials, using public funds, carrying
out the publics work. 

We got responses to our questions, but youd be hard pressed to call them
answers. One was a chewing out that I hadnt interviewed the head of the
Technical Assistance Center on July 30 when they held the grand opening. 

A couple of questions about how the use of buildings was changing from a
plan that had just been approved in March brought this response: The uses
for all buildings will be under consideration as the CEFP is reviewed and
updated to best meet the needs of the school. 

Thats called bureaucratese  the say-nothing language bureaucrats resort
to when they simply dont want to say whats really going on. It sounds
official; it simply comes off as officious (and thats not a good thing). 

Other things we know from the long-delayed responses: 

State Superintendent Clayton Burch is making monthly trips here, but he
wont be able to find time to do a face-to-face interview. 

I did get a phone interview with him when the report that led to the
intervention first became news. (Well him and Christy Day.) 

Hes found the time to sit with Hoppy Kercheval twice in these months. 

Stakeholder meetings that Burch began with some people from here have
stopped after 2 of them. They never included a local business owner, campus
neighbor, current WVSDB staff member or alumni (either deaf or blind). 

Although the Technical Assistance Center sits just 4 blocks from the
Review office, the Department of Education will try to arrange a phone
interview with the director, but not a face-to-face session. I bet the
phone interview will have a minder from Charleston listening in. 

This column probably wont win me any friends in Charleston, but you
deserve to know what Charleston is doing to try to keep you from knowing
what Charleston is doing. 

In the meantime, Ill keep asking questions (and expect Ill get short,
unsatisfying answers with almost no opportunity for follow-ups because
thats the way theyve designed the process) and the Review will keep trying
to bring you the story of how a core piece of Hampshire County is being
changed before all the changes are a done deal. 

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