Tim Walker

You've likely heard all the tired myths and half-truths about pay and public schools. Unfortunately, some politicians promote these myths to justify decisions about school funding—and specifically educator pay. With the arguments below in your toolkit, you can help change the narrative about our profession.

During the September 30, 2026 regular meeting of the Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority Board (SWA Board,) Vice-Chairman Nancy Harris provided a copy of West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) Inspector Brett Smith's “Notice of Violations” regarding the Pocahontas County Landfill. The inspection report listed thirty violations at the landfill which violate the landfill's permit to operate. The report is supported by included photographic evidence of the violations. Harris read the summary comments by Inspector Smith. Although the violations noted in report are too numerous to fully list here, they included:

McCoy was advised that people should not be in the building as it is unsafe for their health. McCoy said he was coming to the commission now on an emergency basis to find a place to move his people, offices, evidence and equipment to as immediately as possible.

, the Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority Board (SWA) voted to terminate their lawyer, David Sims, as their legal representative. Prior to the SWA's recent shift in direction due to the appointments of Gail Siers and Nancy Harris to the board, the prior board had utilized Sims as a primary source of information and recommendations regarding the future of solid waste disposal in the county after the county landfill's predicted closure. A number of concerned county residents did not like Sim's recommendations to have JacMal Industries build a transfer station at the landfill site. Even when it became apparent that would not continue to be their plan, many of those residents were angered by Sims' active involvement at meetings. During discussions of the motion to remove Sims and seek other legal counsel, former SWA Chairman David Henderson and member Phil Cobb argued against removing Sims, saying Sims has won every court case he has handled for the SWA. However, on a 3 to 2 vote, the majority voted to remove Sims.

Although the majority of the Board Members had desired to not charge anything, or only $1.00 for these home-schooled students to participate in extra-curricular activities at the schools, the WV Department of Education requires that a “reasonable” fee in line with what other school systems set must be charged. After looking at other schools' charges, the members voted to set fees of $100.00 for home schoolers to participate in football; $50.00 to participate in any other sport, and $10.00 to participate in academic fairs and contests.

October 20, 2026 Audio Player At the October 8 meeting of the Pocahontas County Broadband Council, Mike Holstine informed the members

meeting of the Pocahontas County Commission, Jodi Zickefoose, the Day Report Director, asked the commissioners to authorize Day Report to offer a new service, specifically to allow Day Report to offer pre-employment drug screening of prospective employees of private businesses, if the business requests it and are willing to pay Day Report to conduct those drug tests. She said they would charge the business $50.00 to do an instant drug screen, and $85.00 to do a lab-confirmed drug screen. The commissioners discussed this, and Commissioner Ryder commented that there are currently no other resources in the county that offer drug testing of perspective employees to screen them for illegal drug use. He then made a motion to authorize Day Report to offer this as a service to area businesses. That motion passed unanimously.

McCoy went on to explain that his deputies are now forced to hold prisoners in a van while waiting for them to be transferred to a regional jail. He said this is unsafe and necessitates using a deputy to guard the van, which causes shortages of deputies performing enforcement or other duties. The Sheriff added that not being able to use the jail building also means that there are insufficient secure locations to secure evidence. He said they just cannot continue full operations like this much longer. He said other functions would still continue. (Those would include duties such as warrant and summons service, tax collections, and courthouse security.)

We recently interviewed Charles Evans, the Division Chief of the Snowshoe Highlands Area Recreation Collaborative (SHARC,) who briefs our listeners about recent accomplishments of the SHARC Team. For those not familiar with SHARC, they are dedicated group of outdoor professionals who maintain our hiking and biking trails, and provide both wildland fire response and backcountry rescue and medical response.

According to new NEA research, educator support for policies limiting personal device use is strong. But teachers are more likely than principals to raise questions about enforcement and how positive the impact has been on students and classrooms.