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Campbell gets kudos, HB 206 may return in 2020 and State BOE’s listening tour in town today

Sam Brunett wasn’t watching the clock during the Monongalia County Board of Education meeting Tuesday night.

He was, however, keeping a pretty keen eye on the calendar.

“January’s going to be here quick, man,” he said.

Jan. 8, especially.

That’s when the 2020 session of the West Virginia State Legislature gavels in, and Brunett was wondering how many miles he might be logging to Charleston before it’s all done.

Brunett, a Morgantown High art teacher and president of Mon’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers was mainly thinking about something else.

He was thinking about how big of a shadow House Bill 206 might also cast over the proceedings.

“Right now, it’s just a big ocean of who-knows-what,” Brunett said of the embattled bill, which finally passed after Gov. Jim Justice called lawmakers back to Charleston in a special session in June.

The bill, which allows the formation of charter schools as one of its more contentious planks, didn’t make it off the floor during the 2019 session.

Meanwhile, the state Board of Education is in Morgantown today for the second leg of a listening tour that is covering West Virginia from its southern coalfields to Northern Panhandle.

State board president Dave Perry said last week he wants to hear from everyone, be they teachers, parents or other employees in a school system.

“The West Virginia Board of Education is committed to being accessible,” he said.

That means, he said, getting residents literally where they live.

Today’s forum will be from 6-8 p.m. at the Monongalia County Technical Education Center, on Mississippi Street.

Subjects to be discussed include flexibility in courses, credits and standards, teacher preparation and the influence Local School Improvement Councils have when it comes to the above.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, members of Mon’s school board bestowed high marks to Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr.

Campbell was hired last year after serving in teaching and administrative posts from Shanghai, China, to Tucker County, in his native West Virginia.

“We want to continue our association with Dr. Campbell,” President Ron Lytle said.

“We want to work shoulder-to-shoulder with him for the benefit of our students in Mon County.”

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