‘The Best School in the Land’ Is Back in Paden City

A crowd of Paden City residents gathered on Main Street in their small town yesterday evening to celebrate a court-ordered reopening of Paden City High School.

The ruling by Wetzel County Circuit Judge Richard Wilson came 50 days after Wetzel County Schools Superintendent Cassandra Porter unilaterally closed the school. Wilson initially reopened it July 12 under a temporary restraining order. His new decision means that PCHS will be open for the 2024-25 academic year unless further legal action changes that.

“Superintendent Porter did not have the statutory authority to close PCHS,” Wilson wrote in Katrina Neff v. Cassandra Porter. “... Having found that superintendent Porter acted unjustifiably so, Paden City High School remains open, and its longevity, future and fate is appropriately an issue for the elected representatives” of the school board.

The judge ordered Porter to halt any further efforts to close the school. All faculty and staff positions must be filled; all equipment taken from the school in recent weeks must be returned; and the school’s sports teams and band must be allowed to compete.

“You did it, Wildcat nation,” Teresa Toriseva, the lawyer who argued the case for Paden City, said at the town meeting. “The court ruled that your school is safe. … The fearmongering comes to an end.”

The words of the school’s fight song may have never carried deeper meaning than they did as Paden City residents sang them just after sunset:

The legal game may not be over, but Toriseva said she and colleague Joshua Miller are “in this fight as long as the fight lasts.”

“The entire state of West Virginia has been watching this battle,” she said, adding that people from the Eastern Panhandle to the southern coalfields have contacted her law firm. “This is a victory for small towns and for small schools and what they deliver.”

The PCHS school year is scheduled to start in mid-August.

Key excerpts from Wilson’s ruling

• “The students of PCHS have the right to their education and for it not to be interrupted through the unilateral closure of PCHS by superintendent Porter.”

• “The county superintendent closed PCHS ‘until further notice’ and has not made any indication to the public as to when PCHS will be reopened. The inclusion of the phrase ‘until further notice’ does not indicate that the closure of PCHS was temporary. ‘Until further notice’ operates as a permanent closure until it is not.”

• “The evidence presented to this court does not establish that superintendent Porter’s closure of PCHS is temporary. Witnesses have observed athletic equipment, band equipment, teaching equipment and other school equipment being removed.”

• “This court specifically finds there were no unacceptable risks of harm to the health, safety and welfare of the pupils at PCHS. … Closing PCHS when no threat to the students’ safety exists is rash, unreasonable, and will devastate the students, the teachers and staff, and the overall community.”

• “The [West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission] will take the position as if the June 12, 2024, closure and subsequent reopening never occurred for determining students’ eligibility” for sports and band activities.

• “A risk of liability because of alleged environmental contamination does not afford a county superintendent authority … to close a school.”

• “The court is NOT persuaded that superintendent Porter’s decision was an act or effort towards the permanent closure of the school or subterfuge under the guise of the statute relied upon.”

• “The EPA ... sets conservative standards for allowable levels of indoor air pollutants that threaten the health and safety of citizens. The standards set by the EPA are industry standards that govern allowable pollution in indoor air without any increased risk of adverse health effects. The EPA does not require zero contamination of pollutants to be considered safe for human beings. There were no other regulatory standards requiring zero level of contaminants.”

• “The scientific understanding of vapor intrusion is relatively new, as it emerged in environmental sciences in about 2010.”

 News coverage of the latest ruling

• Prayers Answered; Doors Will Open Again at Paden City High School

• Court Orders Paden City High School Be Reopened

• Paden City Will Reopen as though It Never Closed

• Judge Halts Paden City High School Closure

• Judge Decides Paden City High School Stays Open

• West Virginia School Ordered to Remain Open