West Virginia's Senate Bill 619 — which would, if enacted, allow "[t]eachers in public schools, including public charter schools, that include any one or more of grades Kindergarten through 12, [to] teach intelligent design as a theory of how the universe and/or humanity came to exist" — passed the Senate on a 27 to 6 vote on February 25, 2023, according (PDF) to the legislature's website.
Before the bill passed, Dale Lee, President of the West Virginia Education Association, described it as a "solution in search of a problem," according to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph (February 25, 2023). He added, "We teach WV College and Career readiness standards" — which, like all state science standards across the country, include evolution but not creationism (including "intelligent design").
A columnist in Charleston's MetroNews (February 24, 2023) previously, if unsuccessfully, reminded the legislature about the case law establishing the unconstitutionality of teaching creationism in the public schools, including Kitzmiller v. Dover and Edwards v. Aguillard, explaining that the government is not allowed "to instruct school children on a faith-based creation story and pass it off as science."
