MORGANTOWN – Monongalia voters gave an A to their local school district Tuesday night, overwhelmingly renewing the excess levy for education – while also choosing to keep the three incumbents on the Board of Education who were up for reelection.
With all 43 precincts reporting, the total for the levy was 10,027 votes for and 2,659 against.
The levy, which has been on the books since 1973 in Mon, currently generates $35.6 million annually, in additional dollars for the district.
In turn, those monies are used for Advanced Placement courses, while bolstering arts programs and extracurricular activities.
All those things, Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said, that make Mon Schools, well, Mon Schools.
“I couldn’t be happier,” he said. “This is such an endorsement. It really shows how the county values its school system.”
Campbell credited the work of the Community for Monongalia County Schools, the nonprofit outreach group formed earlier this year to specially promote and market the levy.
The group began hosting forums and get-togethers in earnest in February and kept the grassroots campaign right up until the primary.
“You look at its co-chairs Frank Vitale and Rebekah Aranda,” the superintendent said, “and all the volunteers doing all that good work. I told Frank this has been the best committee I’ve ever worked with.”
In the contest for BOE, incumbent Dan Berry was the top vote-getter, with 6,214 ballots cast in his favor.
Berry taught for 30 years in Mon schools and joined the faculty of St. Francis de Sales Central Catholic School after his retirement.
Jennifer Hagerty, who logged two decades in the district as a teacher and administrator pulled down 5,617 votes, and Mike Kelly, the current BOE president and longtime incumbent, netted 5,042 votes for another term.
“When the community speaks, it’s that much better,” Campbell said.
“We’re going to keep working and doing the good things we do so we can continue to pay back the community for the trust they put in us.”
