UPCOMING CCSJ EVENTS

Wednesday, January 22 - 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. - place to be announced - Economic Justice Discussion

At our December 4 meeting, we decided to try to locate copies of living wage ordinances that apply to communities the size of Morgantown and Monongalia County, since most of the ones we know about are for larger cities. Dave Cormier and Amar Mehta are working on that issue, while Tim Hairston is seeking more information about the City of Morgantown's budget. These ordinances usually affect businesses that have contracts with the local governments, so it is important for us to understand how this would affect the City of Morgantown and, perhaps, Monongalia County. All meetings are open to the public. For further information about our economic justice work, please contact Tim Hairston or Paul Becker.

Wednesday, February 5 - 7:00 p.m. - Place to be announced - Steering Committee Meeting

Please share your ideas for future events and projects with any of the members of the steering committee or contact Tim Hairston if you would like to attend a steering committee meeting to discuss your ideas.

POSSIBLE FUTURE CCSJ EVENTS

We continue to be interested in a program on community service alternatives to jail sentences. If you wish to participate in this program, please contact Mike Sharley.

LIBRARY BOOKS AND VIDEOS

We have purchased books for Arnettsville, Cass, North, Ridgedale, Waitman Barbe, and Woodburn schools and will be delivering these to the schools' librarians early in 2003.

Suzanne Gosden, a clinical instructor with the Job Accommodation Network at the WVU College of Human Resources and Education, has prepared an extensive list of books for children that focus on people with disabilities. The list is divided into categories like ADD/ADHD, AIDS, amputation/mobility, asthma/allergies, cancer, mental retardation/autism/down's syndrome, and wheelchair/mobility For a copy of the list, please contact Suzanne (293-7186). Few of these are at the Morgantown Public Library.

If you have suggestions for future purchases, please contact Judy Cohen.

PAY EQUITY CONFERENCE

The West Virginia Women's Commission is among the sponsors for a workshop on pay equity issues related to state government employees. The workshop will be on Monday, January 20th, in Room B of the Gaston Caperton State Training Center (part of the state capitol complex) in Charleston. The workshop will focus on getting an equal pay bill passed in the state legislature and on ways to get funding to support this bill. The program will begin at 9:45 a.m. and conclude at 4:45 to allow those attending to participate in the Martin Luther King, Jr., Birthday events at the capitol that day. The workshop is free and open to the public but pre-registration is required. To receive more information and a pre-registration brochure, contact Margaret Jarvis at 344-3557.

CIVIL RIGHTS TEAMS UPDATE

As far as we know, the State Board of Education has not yet appointed the promised committee to review the civil rights teams in the schools. If you wish to follow the progress of these teams through the deliberations of the State Board of Education, you can access the board's minutes at wvde.state.wv.us/boe-minutes/

There was discussion of these teams at the November 14 meeting, for instance, and this is the portion of the minutes that referred to the teams:

"President Persinger requested that the State Superintendent or a member of his staff prepare a response to letters (excluding form letters) received from individuals regarding the Civil Rights Team Project. Sandra M. Chapman requested that all members be allowed to review the response prior to its distribution. Barbara N. Fish provided a report regarding progress in the investigation of the Civil Rights Team Project including her visit to East Fairmont High School. Barbara N. Fish and Ronald B. Spencer will be visiting Liberty High School in the next few of weeks.

Barbara N. Fish also reported on a visit she made to Barnes Elementary in Marion County.

President Persinger asked if all parties will be invited to the meeting at which the Civil Rights Team Project investigation results are revealed. A historical overview of the situation involving the Civil Rights Team Project was provided by Sandra M. Chapman.

President Persinger questioned the possibility of a meeting with all involved parties. Ms. Tinder indicated the Open Meetings Law does not allow for this type of discourse; however, the parties may appear as delegations. Superintendent Stewart asked how delegations came to be added to each agenda. Paul J. Morris indicated that the Board, with the appointment of a fact finding committee, is not following 20 years of established procedures. The normal procedure would have been for the Department to investigate the matter and provide a recommendation at which time the Board would then invite input from all involved parties.

Sandra M. Chapman indicated that she would like to hear from Mr. Sheridan and has received ample information from the opposing view.

Sheila M. Hamilton questioned whether the entire project is to be terminated or simply a portion.

Sandra M. Chapman indicated that she required additional information about the program prior to making any assumptions or determinations.

Paul J. Morris again stated his concern that not following established procedures will, in the future, prove detrimental."

The next Board of Education meeting will be January 9 in Charleston. There will probably be some supporters of these teams attending the meeting, so please contact Barb Howe at 293-2339 ext. 1155 if you might be interested in attending this meeting.

Paul Sheridan has also provided a detailed program description of the Civil Rights Team Project, as well as a summary of the controversy and ideas on how to take action. If you would like a copy of this, please contact Barb Howe. A very important part of this process, which Mr. Morris mentions in the minutes above, is that the State Board of Education "has not followed any legitimate procedure or criteria" in deciding to suspend the teams "and has issued a cease and desist order without even fully grasping what it was ‘banning'." Nor does the State Board of Education "have any statute, regulation or policy which requires programs to obtain its approval before operating, or any statute, regulation policy which sets the standards for when and how a program can be ‘banned'." Therefore, the board's "action in this case is not only precipitous and ill-informed, but is completely unprecedented."

It is not too late to express your support for these teams by contacting:
Howard Persinger, Jr., President
WV Department of Education
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25305

Governor Bob Wise
Office of the Governor
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25305
www.state.wv.us/governor

David Stewart
State Superintendent of Schools
WV Department of Education
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25305

Attorney General Darrell V. McGraw, Jr.
Office of the Attorney General
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East, Room 26E
Charleston, WV 25305-992

PLEASE SEND YOUR DUES AND IDEAS!

We have about 200 individuals and organizations on our mailing list now and would very much appreciate having all of you as dues-paying members so that we have the resources to continue our work. Dues are $5 for individuals and $25 for organizations. Youth under the age of 18 are free. Please send your checks, payable to CCSJ, to PO Box 160, Morgantown, WV 26507-0160.

Please send your web site suggestions to Mike Attfield.

Please contact any of the steering committee members to volunteer to help and to share your suggestions for our work or e-mail us.

Deadline for items to include in next Update will be January 15. Please send items to share with our membership to us.

OTHER LOCAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Morgantown Human Rights Commission did not meet in December, so we have no further news to report at this time. For further information, please contact T. Anne.

The Eighteenth Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Commemoration Program will be on Thursday, January 16, at 7 p.m., at Spruce Street United Methodist Church. For a list of web sites related to Dr. King, please see the WVU Center for Black Culture and Research web site at www.wvu.edu/~cbcr/mlk1.html. The speaker for this event is scheduled to be Minnijean Brown-Trickey, who was one of the nine African-American students who entered Little Rock Central High School in September 1957. Ms. Brown-Trickey became deputy assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior in the Clinton administration in 1999. She is now working on her autobiography, tentatively entitled Mixed Blessing: Living Black in North America. Ms. Brown-Trickey "provides audiences with a fascinating exploration of social change, diversity, and the battle against discrimination and racism. Realistic, but at the same time hopeful, she helps her listeners to understand both how far we have come from that fateful autumn in Little Rock, and how far we have still to go, in the battle for freedom and equality in America." The WVU Center for Women's Studies is among the co-sponsors for this event.

The Thirteenth Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Unity Breakfast will be on Monday, January 20, at 8 a.m. at the WVU Mountainlair Ballrooms. For more information, see these web pages. Both events are free and open to the public. Reservations are requested for the breakfast, so please RSVP by January 6 to 293-7029, ext. 110. The breakfast is courtesy of the WVU President's Office.

Mom's Turn to Learn Day, sponsored by the WVU Center for Women's Studies and WVU Council for Women's Concerns, will be on Monday, March 24, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Morgantown Mall. This will be an opportunity for women (and men) who may be interested in attending WVU to meet with representatives from many WVU offices in a "one-stop" format. The program is particularly focused on women who have had to interrupt their education for some reason and now want to start college or come back to college. For further information, contact Marlene Robinson at 293-2339 ext. 1153.

AWARD NOMINATION DEADLINES