NEW DISPLAY — Hancock County Superintendent Dan Enich shows a mockup of a poster the district soon will be displaying throughout the school system’s buildings. The poster is required under a new state law. -- Craig Howell

NEW CUMBERLAND — In following a new state code, all buildings within the Hancock County Schools system soon will include signage displaying the words “In God We Trust.”

Introduced in February by state Sen. Mike Azinger, R-Wood, Senate Bill 280 amended state code to require the phrase — designated as the official national motto of the United States in 1956 — to be put on display in the state’s public schools.

The bill was fully approved by both houses of the Legislature and signed by Gov. Patrick Morrisey in April.

“It’s required in all schools in West Virginia,” Hancock County Schools Superintendent Dan Enich said during Monday’s meeting of the Hancock County Board of Education, at which time he unveiled a mockup of the signage to be displayed in the county.

SB 280 requires “public elementary and secondary schools and state institutions of higher education to display in a conspicuous location within a common area of the main building or similar location in another building a durable poster or framed copy of the United States motto, ‘In God We Trust’.”

“It has to be in a prominent location in every school,” Enich said.

The text of the bill requires “the poster or framed copy of the national motto described in this section is a minimum of 8.5 by 11 inches, and shall contain a representation of the United States flag centered under the national motto and may not depict any other words, images or other information.”

No public funds can be used to meet the requirements, but school districts are permitted to accept private donations to cover their costs.

The same requirements also apply to colleges and universities and public charter schools in West Virginia.