Education

​My goal is to reform our state's outdated truancy laws to protect working families and put education first.
​What This Means for West Virginia:
​Stop Punishing Parents: We must end the criminalization, fines, and jail threats against parents whose children miss school due to poverty, health issues, or transportation barriers.
​Mandatory Help, Not Harm: Before any legal action, schools must provide documented support—such as health and transportation resources—using existing school teams to solve the root problem.
​Protect Workers' Paychecks: We will require schools to make every reasonable effort to schedule meetings and court activities outside of a parent's primary working hours to minimize, to the maximum extent possible, any income loss.
​We must move away from simply prosecuting neglect and instead focus on providing the essential support West Virginia families need to succeed.

WEST VIRGINIA CHILD WELFARE AND EDUCATION REFORM ACT
A BILL to amend the West Virginia Code governing compulsory school attendance and truancy to safeguard parental civil liberties, mandate comprehensive educational support through existing entities, and prohibit the criminalization of neglect without proven, willful intent.
SECTION 1. LEGISLATIVE DECLARATION AND PURPOSE
(a) Declaration. The Legislature declares that the punitive use of current truancy laws imposes unjust financial burdens and fails to address the root systemic barriers to student attendance, including poverty, health needs, and lack of resources.
(b) Purpose. This Act establishes truancy as an educational and welfare challenge, shifting jurisdiction away from criminal enforcement. The purpose is to mandate early intervention through the Student Assistance Team (SAT), establish the County Attendance Director (CAD) as the final non-judicial review authority, and implement stringent legal standards to protect the economic stability of working families.
SECTION 2. RECLASSIFICATION AND PROHIBITION OF PUNISHMENT
(a) Truancy Reclassification. Student truancy shall be classified exclusively as a matter of educational neglect under the purview of the family or juvenile court system. It shall not be treated as a criminal misdemeanor against a parent or guardian.
(b) Prohibition of Penalties.
(1) Incarceration. No parent or guardian shall be subject to incarceration for a child’s non-attendance unless proven to have engaged in malicious, willful, and sustained prevention of attendance for reasons other than verifiable hardship.
(2) Fines. No fine shall be levied until all mandated supportive services have been offered and documented as having been refused or having failed to achieve compliance.
SECTION 3. MANDATORY INTERVENTION SYSTEM
(a) Initial Consultation. Upon a student’s third (3rd) unexcused absence, the school district must conduct and document a required consultation with the family to identify specific attendance barriers.
(b) Required Services. Before any legal action is pursued, the County Board of Education shall be required to offer documented referrals to community and school-based support services tailored to the identified barrier, including but not limited to, transportation assistance, and referrals to medical, mental health, or social services.
(c) Formal Intervention by Student Assistance Team (SAT). Upon a student’s sixth (6th) unexcused absence, the Student Assistance Team (SAT) shall convene to assess the root cause of truancy and develop a comprehensive Attendance Improvement Plan (AIP).
(d) Final Administrative Review by County Attendance Director (CAD). Upon a student’s tenth (10th) unexcused absence, the case shall be immediately referred to the County Attendance Director (CAD) for final administrative review. Referral to a magistrate is prohibited until the CAD’s review is exhausted.
(e) Protection of Parental Income. The County Attendance Director (CAD) shall be legally mandated to schedule all meetings with parents at times that demonstrate maximum effort to avoid conflict with the parent or guardian's primary working hours, including offering telephonic or virtual meetings during non-traditional hours. In-person meetings outside of the 9-to-5 workday shall be offered, provided the CAD determines such scheduling is operationally feasible and adequately staffed.
SECTION 4. JUDICIAL LIMITATIONS AND EXEMPTIONS
(a) Age-Based Exemption. No legal action or punitive measure shall be taken against a student or a student's parent or guardian if the student is within twelve (12) months of the legal age to exit compulsory school attendance. This exemption applies to any student who has attained the age of sixteen (16) years.
(b) Administrative Withdrawal for Older Students. For students who have attained the age of sixteen (16) years and have accumulated twenty (20) or more total unexcused absences during a school year, the County Board of Education shall have the option to pursue an administrative withdrawal of the student from compulsory attendance, provided that: (1) The student and parents/gardians have been fully informed of the implications of withdrawal, (2) The County Attendance Director has certified that all resources and interventions have been offered and utilized without success, and (3) The school district provides the student with documentation detailing alternative educational pathways, including vocational training, GED programs, and adult education options, upon withdrawal.
(c) High Bar for Prosecution. Referral to the magistrate for parental prosecution shall be permissible only after the County Attendance Director (CAD) certifies that the parents or guardians have demonstrated a pattern of willful neglect. This certification shall require documented proof of at least three (3) distinct refusals by the parent or guardian to participate in scheduled meetings or to accept tailored resources, where the parent or guardian has not made a clear assertion that the refusal was due to a lack of transportation, communication access, or verifiable employment conflict; OR where such assertion was made, the CAD has certified in writing that reasonable attempts to mitigate the asserted barrier were documented and refused by the parent.
(d) Prohibition of Wage-Loss Mandates. Any court order or mandate issued by a magistrate or juvenile court related to truancy shall make every reasonable effort to avoid a requirement that the parent or guardian take time off from verified employment. The court shall prioritize scheduling hearings and compliance activities during non-working hours (such as late afternoons, evenings, or weekends) to minimize, but not guarantee the complete elimination of, income loss.
(e) Due Process. Any referral for legal action must be accompanied by a detailed, documented report proving the family's engagement with, and the ineffectiveness of, the mandatory supportive interventions described in this Act.
SECTION 5. REPEAL AND ENACTMENT
(a) Repeal. All sections of the West Virginia Code that treat truancy violations by parents or guardians as criminal misdemeanors or authorize immediate incarceration or excessive fines without prior provision of mandatory supportive intervention are hereby repealed or amended to conform to the provisions of this Act.
(b) Fiscal Intent and Administration. The Legislature finds that the reallocation of resources away from the current punitive legal process and toward the newly mandated administrative review functions shall be sufficient to offset the costs associated with the expanded duties of the County Attendance Director and Student Assistance Teams. Therefore, the implementation of this Act is intended to be funded through existing county and state attendance resource budgets. The implementation of the mandatory intervention procedures detailed in Section 3 is explicitly contingent upon the certification by the State Board of Education (SBOE) that sufficient resources and training have been allocated through existing resource budgets to meet the projected caseload increase for each County Board of Education. If the SBOE fails to file this certification with the Secretary of State within one hundred eighty (180) days of the Act's effective date, the mandatory intervention procedures of Section 3 shall automatically be initiated in a pilot program across no fewer than three (3) counties, selected by the State Superintendent of Schools from a list of volunteer counties, until statewide certification is achieved.
SECTION 6. EFFECTIVE DATE
This Act shall take effect on the ninetieth day following its passage.

Our commitment is to immediately restore a focused learning environment for all students and empower our teachers to teach without constant interruption.
​This goal will be accomplished through three critical actions:
​1. Rapid Response to Disruptive Behavior: We will establish county-wide pools of specially trained personnel—Behavioral Support Assistant Teachers (Aide VI)—mandated to enter elementary and middle-school classrooms instantly upon a teacher's request to manage disruptive behavior and quickly restore the learning process.
​2. Teacher Protection and Mandate Enforcement: We will guarantee that teachers are protected from administrative retaliation for seeking help, and we will require strict enforcement of existing rules to provide one-on-one aides for students whose special education plans mandate it due to violent or threatening behavior.
​3. Fully Funded by Existing Resources: This essential program will be funded by requiring State and County Boards of Education to prioritize and utilize existing federal education funds (including Title I and IDEA) for all personnel and training costs. This ensures the safety and learning of students is prioritized without raising any new state taxes.

The West Virginia Classroom Management and Safety Act
​A BILL
​TO AMEND the West Virginia Code by adding a new section, designated as \S 18-5-28, to a chapter thereof, relating to General Provisions respecting Education; TO CREATE the West Virginia Classroom Management and Safety Act; TO MANDATE the immediate provision of one-on-one aides as required by Individualized Education Programs; TO ESTABLISH a county-wide pool of rapid-response Behavioral Support Assistant Teachers; TO MANDATE the prioritization of existing education funds, including federal funds, for the staffing and training of this program; TO PROHIBIT the use of new state taxes or severance taxes for this purpose; and TO PROVIDE for teacher protection from administrative retaliation and for compliance reporting.
​Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
​ARTICLE 5. COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION.
​\S 18-5-28. The West Virginia Classroom Management and Safety Act.
​(a) Legislative Findings and Purpose.
​Findings. The Legislature finds that persistently disruptive and dangerous student behavior in classrooms compromises the learning environment for the majority of students and poses a safety risk to educators. The punitive administrative use of existing discipline procedures often fails to provide immediate relief to the classroom teacher, and the existing legal obligation to provide specialized support is not consistently fulfilled.
​Purpose. The purpose of this Act is to immediately restore order and safety in West Virginia classrooms by empowering certified teachers and mandating that County Boards of Education utilize existing resources to establish prompt, professional behavioral support for students while preserving the integrity of federal special education funding.
​(b) Definitions.
​As used in this section:
​"Behavioral Support Assistant Teacher" means an education employee holding the Aide VI classification pursuant to \S 18A-4-8 of this code, who has received mandatory specialized training in de-escalation and behavior management techniques.
​"Disruptive Behavior" means any action by a student that significantly and repeatedly obstructs the educational process of other students or poses a credible threat to the physical or psychological safety of students or staff.
​(c) Establishment of Aides Program and Expanded Roles.
​Tier I: Special Needs Support (The 1:1 Mandate). The County Board of Education shall ensure that any student whose Individualized Education Program (IEP) or Section 504 Plan mandates the provision of a one-on-one aide due to violent, threatening, or persistently disruptive behavior shall be provided such aide without delay. This is a legislative mandate for the immediate and non-negotiable fulfillment of this existing legal obligation.
​Tier II: Classroom Management Support (The Behavioral Support Assistant Teacher Pool). The County Board of Education shall establish a county-wide pool of specially trained personnel, to be known as Behavioral Support Assistant Teachers, for rapid deployment to elementary and middle-school classrooms upon the request of a certified classroom teacher who has exhausted all reasonable classroom discipline measures. These Behavioral Support Assistant Teachers shall enter the classroom immediately to manage the disruptive student, facilitate their removal, or provide on-site de-escalation intervention, ensuring the educational process for the remaining students is restored without delay.
​(d) Dedicated Funding and Resource Utilization.
​Exclusion of Non-Education Funds. This Act shall be funded solely through sources currently dedicated to public education. No new state tax or fee, or revenue derived from energy or resource severance taxes, shall be appropriated for the purposes of this Act.
​Maximized Utilization of Existing Federal Funds. The State and County Boards of Education are mandated to prioritize the allocation of the maximum allowable percentage of existing, flexible federal and state funding to cover the personnel and training costs associated with the Aide Program, including, but not limited to:
​Federal IDEA Funds: Funds received under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) shall be allocated for staffing the Tier I (1:1) aides, consistent with federal maintenance-of-effort and allowable-use requirements.
​Federal Title I and Title IV Funds: Funds provided through Title I (A) and Title IV (A) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) shall be strategically allocated to staff the Tier II (Behavioral Support Assistant Teacher) pool and provide mandatory de-escalation and behavior management training for all personnel utilized under this Act.
​State Education Appropriations: Any remaining costs shall be covered by the existing General Revenue Fund appropriation for education.
​(e) Accountability and Compliance.
​Teacher Protection and Empowerment. Any certified teacher who exercises the right to call for an intervention by a Behavioral Support Assistant Teacher shall be fully protected from administrative retaliation, administrative censure, or any disciplinary action related to the request.
​Annual Reporting. The State Department of Education shall submit an annual report to the Joint Committee on Education detailing the number of rapid-response interventions, the disposition of students referred, and the specific expenditure of the dedicated federal and state funds under this Act, affirming compliance with federal regulations.
​(f) Severability.
​If any provision of this Act or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the invalidity shall not affect other provisions or applications of the Act which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to this end, the provisions of this Act are declared to be severable.
​(g) Effective Date.
​This Act shall take effect on the ninetieth day following its passage.