Davis
Moats
CHARLESTON -– Supreme Court Justice Robin Jean Davis and Nineteenth Circuit Judge Alan Moats will hold the last two of a series of regional meetings on truancy next week in Wheeling and Parkersburg.
The public is invited to the meetings and no registration is needed.
Anyone can attend either meeting, but each meeting is designed for people living in specific counties.
The meetings will be held:
* 10 a.m. Monday, Nov. 14, Circuit Judge Arthur Recht's Courtroom, City/County Building, Wheeling. The Wheeling meeting is intended for those living in Brooke, Hancock, Marshall and Ohio counties.
* 10 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, Circuit Judge J.D. Beane's Courtroom, Wood County Judicial Building, Parkersburg. The Parkersburg meeting is designed for those living in Calhoun, Pleasants, Ritchie, Tyler, Wirt and Wood counties.
Davis encourages parents, educators, social service workers, court officials and anyone who works with children on a daily basis to attend. Davis has been designated by the Supreme Court to coordinate and expand judicial truancy programs in West Virginia.
She will be accompanied at all the meetings by Moats, who began an antitruancy and dropout program in Barbour and Taylor Counties when he realized he was seeing many of the same people appear before him in criminal cases who had appeared before him in truancy cases.
He did some research and discovered that more than 50 percent of Barbour and Taylor County students miss more than 10 days of school each year.
Davis and Moats already have held regional truancy meetings in Charleston, Clarksburg, Morgantown, Lewisburg, Huntington, Summersville, Logan, Martinsburg, Keyser, Elkins, Beckley and Point Pleasant.
Nikki Tennis, Director of the Supreme Court Division of Children's Services, is coordinating follow-up events and discussions from the meetings. She can be reached at 304-558-0145 or Nikki.Tennis@courtswv.gov.