Voices of West Virginia Academy

Below is a recording of the Special Meeting of the Board and Members that was scheduled for 4:30 PM on April 18. The main purpose of this meeting was to remove and replace Trista King as a board member, so that 5 of the 7 board members have resigned or been removed by John since February. The time of the meeting is notable in that it is before the close of business on a weekday, making it challenging for people to attend. This is despite the fact that it is even less convenient for the board member in Utah (where it was 2:30) and it also conflicts with John Treu’s own Accounting class at WVU. It could/should have been scheduled for 5:30 or 6, to run nearly contiguously with the 7 PM Board meeting, but the likely objective was to have as few people observe this meeting as possible. No livestream or Zoom link was provided to parents by John, which is required by the WV Open Meetings Act, even though John had a Zoom session already setup for the remote Board member and adminstrators.

We provide the entire recording but note the following important times:

15:10 – They begin discussing removing Trista King from the Board.

17:31 – 17:39 – Over eight full seconds of silence after John’s request for a motion to remove Trista, until Susan Dull gives in. Clearly no one wanted to make this indefensible motion.

17:45 – 18:00 – John asks for a second to the motion to remove Trista, there is silence, then he reminds everyone (Heidi) that Members can second, and Heidi does.

37:37 – Trista states unequivocally that every charge John has leveled is untrue. Notably, no one else among the Board or Members ever backs up any of the charges John leveled, including Heidi, who is the only other person to speak at all about Trista.

38:16 – 49:28 – Over 11 minutes pass from the time John calls for a vote until he can actually count the votes. There is mass confusion about how to vote, someone can’t connect, John reminds Heidi and Susan that they get to vote multiple times (as does John), John fails to correctly recount all 3 positions for which Susan Dull gets a vote, etc. The well oiled WVA administrative machine at its finest…

Below is a recording of the Regular Meeting of the Board that was scheduled for 7:00 PM on April 18.

We provide the entire recording but note the following important times:

2:35 – The meeting starts.

2:50 – 5:28 – Stephanie McWilliams’s delegation about the 10 day suspension her children received for throwing traffic cones in the basketball hoop, even though other children routinely do the same thing during recess without facing any disciplinary action.