West Virginia
West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee holds public hearing on child welfare system
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – The West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee held a listening session on the child welfare system’s challenges Monday morning, ahead of a week when the committee is set to focus on reforming it. The system currently has about 6,000 children, according to the Child Welfare Dashboard.
The committee heard from parents who have dealt with the state’s child welfare system, as well as those formerly inside the system, about what they believe needs to be changed.
“We want to hear your stories, and as we go through the bills this week on CPS and child welfare, what you share with us this morning is going to help us create better policy,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Tom Willis (R-Berkeley) told attendees.
“After four and a half years of fighting, I lost my son,” Tanya Shresbury told the committee, saying CPS made false accusations against her. “I’ve missed birthdays, Christmases, everything. I’ve had six supervisors that have done visits with me. They all tell ‘em they’re great. Me and my little boy, we have a great connection. But when it comes to the judge seeing those reports … CPS no longer has them.”
Pat McKinney told the committee about his experience with CPS, in which he fought successfully to keep his daughter and son, calling it a “nightmare.”
McKinney told WSAZ he came to the meeting in hopes the agency will prioritize keeping children in family or close friends’ homes, rather than a new environment. That hope was echoed in several others’ addresses to the committee.
“If there’s an alternative, keep them in that family supportive environment,” McKinney said. “When you take a kid, you put them in an alien environment that they feel no support. My kids were so traumatized that if you walked up the sidewalk with a lanyard on, they hid. And we don’t need that. We need to stop taking kids.”
Some speakers were not parents, but advocates or former members of the system. Former state Sen. Mark Drennan, now the president of the West Virginia Behavioral Healthcare Providers Association, laid out what changes to CPS he would prioritize.
“If we want to fix the child welfare system in West Virginia, here’s what we need to look at,” Drennan told the committee. “No more children in hotels, fewer children being served out of state, more foster homes available for those children that need them, more children safely with their biological and kinship families, and more young, resilient adults aging with natural, lifelong connections. That’s what success looks like to me.”
After the hearing, Willis told WSAZ the committee will spend all week on reforms for the child welfare system, calling the current state of the system a “crisis.”
“At least from a legal perspective, we want to do everything we can to protect West Virginia kids and make sure they’ve got the best chance possible,” he said. “How can we set up systems so that the parents have a fair chance, and the children have a fair chance? Then we’ve got the most just system possible.”
Some of the reforms the committee is considering this week include: Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s “Bring Them Home” fund, a plan that aims to reduce the number of children within the child welfare system with behavioral or mental health needs that are sent to out-of-state facilities for care; working with more non-profits to ease the case management load; and implementing audio recording of CPS meetings with parents, children, and home visits.
“We’ve heard a lot of ‘he said, she said’ across the state, where we’ve heard parents would say what they heard in court wasn’t actually what happened, or what was said by the child or by the parent in the home or in a meeting,” Willis explained to WSAZ. “And so we’re looking at doing audio recordings with CPS workers to maintain accountability and transparency, especially for the court proceedings, because it’s such a critical issue, this removal decision.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet daily at 3 p.m. to discuss and move the bills, which Willis estimates to be “in the ballpark of 15” in total. Meetings are streamed online.
Copyright 2026 WSAZ. All rights reserved.
Trump says soaring college football costs are hitting sports
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday (March 6) said the soaring cost of paying for football at colleges was harming school sports in general and the problem would need to be addressed by legislation, adding he might sign an executive order about it.
FRISCO, TX − West Virginia football coach Rich Rodriguez made a public plea for some reason and logic to return to major college football after decades of conference expansion, contraction and realignment from coast to coast.
He made his pitch at his news conference at the annual Big 12 Conference media days here Wednesday, July 8. Rodriguez proposes about 60 teams to come together, share their money and divide themselves into regional sections, sort of like how college football used to be with the former Big East, Pac-12, Big 12, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast Conferences.
“Can’t we all come together and shake hands and give each other a group hug and then have an Eastern regional and a South regional and a North regional, and then everybody share the money?” Rodriguez said. “And, you know, with this money for everybody, we all can get along, like 60 of us or so. I think that would be great. I don’t know. Did anybody else say that? Probably not. They might be afraid. Hell, I don’t care.”
PRESEASON COACHES RANKINGS: Big Ten | SEC | ACC
Rodriguez, 63, made his comments in the context of his team not playing rival Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl again until 2029. They used to play regularly as independents and then members of the Big East before Pitt left to join the ACC in 2013. Since then, realignment has ripped apart regional leagues such as the Pac-12, which saw four marquee West Coast teams depart in 2024 to pursue more money in the Big Ten while others left for the Big 12 and ACC.
Meanwhile, Congress is considering a bill, the Protect College Sports Act, that would allow the pooling of television rights between more than 100 schools. It aims to spread the wealth more beyond just two dominant leagues.
“I’m not speaking for anybody other than Coach Rod, that he would love for all the Power Four teams to come together, shake hands, and then, hey, let’s pick the biggest TV package in the history of TV packages,” Rodriguez said. “And then we could have Pitt, Virginia Tech and Penn State and Maryland and Cincinnati and maybe Virginia or North Carolina, one of those, all right there. And our fans could drive to it. You know, we have a rivalry every year, and everybody makes money. Nobody gets fired. Players did good.”
Rodriguez noted his pitch might not fly in today’s world but wanted to throw it out there before it’s too late. He previously served as head coach at Michigan and Arizona.
“Wouldn’t that be fun?” he asked. “Can we put that together? I got all the (athletic directors) out there shaking their head like I’m nuts. I’m just, I mean, this is, you know, I got more time, a lot more time behind me than ahead of me. I want to just get this thing right before I leave.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
West Virginia
West Virginia town’s entire police force fired after ex-sergeant claims evidence room was broken into
A tiny West Virginia town has been left without a police department after every officer was fired following a dispute over an apparent break-in at the department’s evidence room.
The Barrackville Police Department announced in a Facebook post Tuesday that, effective immediately, every member of the department had been relieved of duty by the Barrackville Town Council and Mayor Tom Straight.
A former sergeant, identified only as Sgt. Hunt, told 12 News he arrived at the department Tuesday morning and found the evidence room had been broken into.
Hunt said he immediately called a meeting with Straight and the town council.
According to Hunt, council members had previously said they wanted to inventory the department without any officers present.
He also claimed a council member admitted to taking a set of police keys.
After accusing members of the town government of breaking into the evidence room, Hunt said he and the department’s only other officer were immediately removed from active duty.
Hunt said the department’s police clerk also resigned, leaving the town with no police staff. He said he informed the mayor and council that he would be seeking whistleblower protection.
The mass firing came less than a week after Barrackville Police Chief Zachary Freeburn resigned. Hunt said the chief quit over what he described as repeated clashes with the town council over how much control it had over the department.
Marion County Sheriff Roger Cunningham told the station that deputies will continue responding to calls in Barrackville while the town of 1,288 people is without a police department.
Resident Isabella Pham said she hopes the turmoil comes to an end.
“I just think that the town right now is in a little bit of a mess,” Pham told the West Virginian Times.
“We’ve gone through a lot of different people, and I’m just hoping that at the end of this, we can get a little bit of stability, transparency and security, and get back to having a stronger community versus a town of pitchforks and torches.”
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