By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
BECKLEY — After four days of hearings spread out between September and October, a decision of whether to grant a permanent injunction for a group of Raleigh County parents seeking to force local and state education officials into accepting their religious exemptions to West Virginia’s compulsory vaccine law could come by the end of November.
Fourteenth Judicial Circuit Judge Michael Froble heard closing arguments Thursday morning in a case first filed in June by Raleigh County parent Miranda Guzman seeking a permanent injunction against the West Virginia Board of Education, State Superintendent of Schools Michele Blatt, and the Raleigh County Board of Education.
Froble already granted a preliminary injunction in the case back in July.
The lawsuit sought to block a June 11 unanimous vote by the state Board of Education requiring Blatt to issue guidance to county school systems that they follow the current State Code requiring children attending public and private school to show proof of immunization for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and hepatitis B unless proof of a medical exemption can be shown.