CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Gov. Jim Justice appointed a longtime educator and state legislator to the Board of Education late Wednesday after saying earlier that he would name replacements for board vacancies who can help him deliver “a new playbook” for West Virginia’s troubled education system.
Justice chose Dave Perry, a classroom teacher and middle school principal for more than 30 years from Fayette County. Perry also spent 16 years in the House of Delegates, where he chaired the banking and insurance committee and was vice chairman of the education committee.
“Dave Perry has the front-line experience we need,” Justice said. “He knows that we need to give our teachers the freedom to teach and return local control to our school districts.”
Perry said that he’s “honored and excited to be a part of an education reform movement” in the state’s public schools.
School board President Michael Green and Vice President Lloyd Jackson tendered their resignations in a statement released Tuesday night by the Department of Education. The resignations came four months after state schools Superintendent Michael Martirano said he would step down at the end of the school year.
Green, a retired businessman with a background in technology, resigned with more than two years left in his nine-year term.
Jackson, a former state senator, is an attorney who runs his family’s natural gas production business. He had three years left in his term.
Inaugurated on Jan. 16, Justice last week appointed three educators to the nine-member state school board to fill vacancies. Miller Hall, Barbara Whitecotton and Chuck Hatfield are to be sworn in Thursday before the school board meets to pick a new president and vice president.
Their resignations came on the heels of comments by Justice that politicians and Charleston-based bureaucrats “have failed to listen to our teachers.”
“I will appoint more reformers to the state board of education who will join me transforming West Virginia because we owe every one of our students a world-class education,” Justice said earlier Wednesday.
Jackson said in his resignation statement it was apparent that Justice wants to pursue “a different course.”
Another state school board member, Scott Rotruck, will end his term in November, giving Justice a sixth appointment.
In last month’s inaugural address, Justice was critical of a new state board-approved school grading system that takes into account testing, improvement, attendance and readiness for further education or careers after high school.
Of the 668 public schools statewide, most received a grade of C. Only about 7 percent, or 45 schools, received an A; 90 schools received an “unacceptable performance” or D grade, and 15 received an F for “lowest performance.”
“We’ve got to worry about our kids getting an A through F versus our schools getting an A through F,” Justice said in the address.
In 2014, a commission established by the school board recommended changes that included shifting some of the counties’ managerial duties to the eight Regional Education Service Agencies. But a recent legislative audit recommended transferring the agencies’ powers and employees to the state Department of Education.
On Wednesday, Justice reiterated his wish to give county school systems a greater voice.
“The people of West Virginia are demanding a new playbook for our schools and I will deliver,” Justice said. Local systems “won’t thrive until we get bureaucrats out of the way. I will reform West Virginia’s schools from the bottom up. We need to let teachers teach.”
In a state already struggling with student performance and college preparation, West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee said Wednesday there’s no sense of alarm with the board resignations and Martirano’s decision.
“It’s time to figure out the direction that we need to go in - which is obviously a new direction - bring people to the table to have the discussions on how to best improve education and get the right people in place to move that forward,” Lee said.
American Federation of Teachers West Virginia chapter president Christine Campbell said Justice made it a priority to talk to teachers, service personnel and school administrators during the election campaign.
“I’m confident that we will have a seat at the table,” Campbell said. “We will have a voice in moving public education forward.”
___
Associated Press writer Michael Virtanen contributed to this report from Morgantown.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.