CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — The West Virginia Senate has passed its version of a school discipline bill aimed at helping address behavior concerns in K-6 classrooms in the state.

Senate Bill 199 outlines actions teachers in the state could take against students showing disruptive or violent behavior, including removal, parental notification, potential suspension, an evaluation and possibly an alternate learning environment.

The bill passed by a unanimous 33-0 vote with one person absent.

Similar legislation has failed in the past, but sponsors of the bill previously told Eyewitness News that new provisions in this proposal reflect communication with teachers in the state.

Under Senate Bill 199, if a student is threatening or disruptive, the student will be referred to a school counselor, social worker or school psychologist to do a functional behavioral analysis and come up with a behavioral plan.

If incidents continue to occur, the behavioral plan can be changed and the student will be given another two weeks to show improvement before further intervention, including work with a behavioral interventionist or a behavioral health agency.

If a county does not have access to a behavioral intervention program, then the student must be removed from the classroom and suspended while a risk assessment is done by a county psychologist.

The bill requires that these assessments be done within one to three days. During this time, alternative learning accommodations are made based on that assessment, whether in an alternate school setting, virtual learning, or back to school on a provisional basis.

The West Virginia House of Delegates has passed its own version of the bill, but Senate Education Chair Amy Grady, R-Mason, previously said both chambers are in agreement that the Senate version can combine the best ideas from both.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito says she thinks the recent federal funding cuts currently being implemented by the Trump Administration will soon settle out.

Many federal programs, organizations, and positions in West Virginia claim that DOGE has already been cutting them back significantly, and it’s hurting them.

In a recent press briefing, Capito said she understands that when it starts to hit close to home, it does hurt.

“The goals are great, the methods are good, but the execution is probably a little rough at this point since the president has only been in for about five to six weeks,” Capito said.

She said the hardest hit area where DOGE has been making these cuts in the state has probably been Parkersburg after the Department of Fiscal Services there had lost over 100 jobs. However, Capito said these were probationary jobs made up of people who had been hired within the last year.

Capito said these cuts are being made so President Trump can ensure the government and government spending is running more efficiently.

The cuts have been affecting everything from Medicaid payments, to various organizations and administrations.

Capito said Trump has been clear that Medicaid and Medicare will not be touched, but he did say they will look into cases of how Medicaid dollars are potentially being abused or wasted, and adjust ways the program can continue to run without cutting benefits.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is one major institution that is being forced to close down offices and affecting state workers.

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President Cecil Roberts issued the following statement regarding the closures:

“The UMWA is very troubled by the announced closures of dozens of MSHA offices around the nation. The work MSHA inspectors and administrative staff do is critical in keeping miners safe at work, and ensuring they return to their families at the end of each shift.”

“It is still not clear to us if all of these offices will actually close, or if the workers there are simply being shifted to other locations. We have not heard of any reductions in force at MSHA as of yet, although if recent events elsewhere in the government are any guide that is to be expected, unfortunately,” Roberts stated.

Roberts said that it’s important to note that prior to 1969, there were no laws protecting miners at work and thousands died in mining accidents every year. He said if the government chooses not to enforce the laws they have in place now, this will put thousands of miners at risk and takes them many steps back from the progress the laws have made in the mining industry.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act program that Capito has been advocating for in the Mountain State, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, or BEAD, has currently even been forced to take a pause.

The program would bring $1.2 billion to connect homes and businesses in underserved and rural communities in West Virginia to high-speed broadband internet.

Capito said the problem was that the program had to go through a lot of hoops during the Biden Administration as there were a lot of DEI issues, climate issues and other add-ons that were built into the program during that time which was not the intent of Congress.

She said this prompted the Trump Administration to pause the program to look at it more closely and make sure it’s mirroring the actual need.

Capito said she hopes they decide to continue the BEAD program, however, because there is a definite need for it in West Virginia.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’m disappointed in this because West Virginia is on the cusp of getting the $1.2 billion dollars after a lot of really tough and close work, 90 thousand people are unserved, another 15 thousand are underserved in our state, so that’s quite a few people,” she said.

She said she hopes this pause will be short, because, as it stands now, not one person has been connected yet through the BEAD program.

However, Capito said the upside is that the program is still very much on the leading-edge in West Virginia despite the pause.

“Our West Virginia Broadband Council was shown as a leader all across the country in how to write, how to make sure we’re serving the right people, that the mappings are correct, I mean, we have honestly done a fantastic job and we’re right on the cusp of getting our money,” Capito said.

Capito said she believes, though, that Trump’s Administration will sort out the programs and positions that are critical to the Mountain State and we will gradually start to see those get revived.

She said she supports DOGE and what it is doing, and believes these cuts are necessary to help alleviate some of the trillions of dollars in debt and make sure everything is running more efficiently.

“The goal, the big goal, is government efficiencies, is making the bloated bureaucracies that we have match better what our needs are and to slim it down,” said Capito.

Federal court judges continue to try and block the Trump Administration’s efforts of freezing these grants, programs, and positions.