The nearly identical acronyms for the West Virginia Board of Education, WVBE, and West Virginia Department of Education, WVDE, are not the only perplexity within educations governing bodies, according to former state Delegate and newly appointed Board President Tom Campbell.

It is very easy in any conversation to say something about the B-E when someone else says, Dont you mean the D-E?

The confusion goes beyond phonics and into function.

If the Board is doing administration, and administration is doing administration Campbell proposes, trailing off to leave the results of those overlapping roles open to interpretation.

Campbell replaces former Board President Mike Green, who resigned Jan. 31. Campbell will remain in his leadership role until June 30, after which he is eligible to serve another year if he is re-elected.

In order to make the enduring changes he envisions, he may need the extra time.

Headlines proposing elimination of Regional Education Service Agencies, or RESAs, announcing county professional and service staff cuts, questioning the effectiveness of state testing requirements and demanding the death of the A-F school rating system make calling this a time of transition a gross understatement. In order to be at the forefront of effective change, Campbell underscores the need for internal and external clarification of both the boards and the departments roles.

It is important to me that the board should be setting and reviewing policy and getting at what policies are necessary, Campbell said.

Of his vision for the board, made up of nine voting members appointed by the governor, Campbell sees a transition from running the system to writing it.

The department should be the administrative arm, he said, his strong feelings rising from experience. Not only was he the former House of Delegates Education Committee chairman, but he also served as the State Fair of West Virginia Board Advisory director.

Trimming education policy to what is essential wont be an easy task for the board, which now has a nice mix of both business and education professionals, according to Campbell.

We have 3,762 pages of policy Im an accountant, and I remember numbers, he said. A policy manual that big makes it very ineffective.

In addition to stripping policy down to what matters, relying more on communities to know what works best for their schools and students is important to Campbell, who has been actively discussing issues statewide with administrators, teachers and students. He appreciates the latter, especially for their candor on all education matters great and small, from instruction to cafeteria food.

If we can build on community and get that into our education system, if we can support the teachers by getting rid of confusion at the top and focusing on what works in the field, then we can have a stronger system, he said. The key is having effective teachers in effective environments where they are able to influence their students.

West Virginia is too diverse a state, geographically and otherwise, to respond to cookie-cutter approaches to education.

Everybody consolidates, but it will take more schools to foster a sense of community, he said. We have a school closing policy, but where is our school opening policy? There are some schools that will have to be closed just like there are churches and homes that sometimes have to be torn down, but if that is our sole focus, we have a problem.

I dont care who said it first, its right that it takes a community to raise a child.

A West Virginia University graduate, Campbell adds the disclaimer that he is both a Mountaineer and Thundering Herd supporter. He used a basketball analogy to explain the style of determination it will take to pull West Virginia out of its educational and financial slump.

Coach (Bob) Huggins knows he is not going to get the top talent, but he knows he can get a lot of pretty good talent to play all the time and press all the time, Campbell said. We have to get intentional, and thats one of the things a financial situation forces you to do.

Campbell was first appointed to the board by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin in 2012. He was a chief financial president for Greenbrier County businessman Allen Carson, whom Campbell credits with always having encouraged his roles in public service. His love of education comes from a lifetime of being surrounded and likewise supported by educators. Campbells parents, as well as aunts and uncles, were educators, which may help to explain why he is passionate for teachers voices to be actively heard with timely responses.

What we have going for us is that we have some great educators in this state, and their stories need to be told, he said. As board president, I want to work with the other members to make the board transparent in its actions. Principals, parents, superintendents, teachers I want to hear from all of these. It is the people in our state who understand our education needs better than anybody.

Common sense often seems lost in legislation, however well-intentioned, Campbell points out. He gave the Healthy Lifestyles and Prevention America Act passed by Congress in 2008 as an example. The act prompted the West Virginia Department of Education to enact an all-out ban of any traditional celebratory snack from the classroom. A proposed change, often called the cupcake bill, is frequently introduced in the West Virginia Legislature, and is again working its way through the legislative process this year.

Campbell says its a small example of what he calls a craving for common sense.

If a teacher knows a child is diabetic, they can accommodate special needs, Campbell said, adding that a cupcake ban also sends the message that parents, along with their desserts, are not welcome in schools.

Why not have parents in schools? We havent eliminated their involvement, but we havent fostered it, either, Campbell said.

Consolidation is another way he says community involvement has been hampered.

We looked at numbers on a piece of paper and said, too many schools. Now, children have longer bus rides and those with lower incomes are treated unfairly.

When other parents can drive their children and drop them off at the beginning of class, the lower income child has to get up very early.

More distant schools also distance parents from involvement, especially those who commute to work.

We dont talk about these issues because they dont fit into that neat mathematical formula, he said. There is research that children who have longer bus rides to school are less likely to go to college than kids with shorter bus rides.

Campbell said the decision to eliminate Smarter Balanced assessments stands as another step in the direction of common sense.

West Virginia schools will follow the tests required by the federal government, but not testing above and beyond, he said. Really, a flood of information is almost as bad as none at all.

Campbell said A-F grading of individual schools also caused myriad issues and will be a topic on the agenda of the next board meeting.

The former Golden Horseshoe winner says he realizes the various moving parts or entities making decisions affecting education will not always move in unison, but he relies on his faith in the West Virginia spirit to instill hope the same spirit that caused people around the state to rally to the aid of his fellow Greenbrier County neighbors following the 2016 floods.

As a state, we need to recognize the strength of our diversity versus trying to form people into the same image, he said. We need to support our schools and give them back to our communities.

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New School Board President Believes Schools Belong to Communities - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)