The Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Tourism hosted a forum to allow the public to hear from Incumbent John Littleton and Challengers Richard Shull and Bob Umstead vying for one seat on the Alleghany Highlands School Board in the upcoming November election, at Mountain View Elementary School, last Wednesday evening.
The audience of a little under 50 heard the Candidates respond to answers from a script of questions, prepared prior to the forum and presented by David Crosier, vice mayor, of Covington. He served as moderator for the evening.
Littleton was up first to introduce himself and give an opening statement. He was born and raised in the Alleghany Highlands. He later earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and started working in his family’s wastewater treatment business. He is married and they have a special needs child.
Shull opened by telling a story about forgetting to mention his wife, and twins Jack and Faith, who attend Covington Middle School during a prior interview. “My kids and everybody else’s kids is what this is all about,” said Shull as one of the main reasons he wants to be on the school board.
“The school board is the next thing for me to deal with,” began Umstead. He added that he’d been involved in public education for 71 years and believes he understands education better than anybody. “I just like working with kids, that’s the bottom line for me,” added Umstead.
Shull was first up to address the first question of the evening on how he would work to raise compensation for the teachers in the Alleghany Highlands. “I’m a big advocate to show appreciation for teachers,” said Shull. He believes, “we need to show appreciation for teachers, as they are “the tip of the glue stick”. While he believes teachers’ pay is important, he also believes that other staff members’ pay, like custodians and bus drivers, are also important. Shull suggests that having people sign a contract that they would work for so many years in the school system after training may be a way of retention.
Umstead’s main concern is getting teachers here who are certified. He believes there are creative and imaginative ways to solve the problem of helping teachers and getting them more interested in “coming here.”
“I’m always for better pay for our teachers and we did give them a raise this past year in hopes that would help,” said Littleton. He suggested local fundraising, higher local taxes, or offering them the option of driving school buses, as options to help out during the current inflation.
“In the 52 years that I’ve taught, I’ve dealt only with handicapped kids,” answered Umstead to the question of what motivated him to want to serve on the AHSB. He finds it interesting and depressing that “other schools are contacting him to help but not ours.” “My heart is with handicapped kids, and I think we have to spend more time teaching kids how to get along with each other,” added Umstead.
“It started with one reason and turned into another,” said Littleton. He shared that his grandmother, mother, and brother had all been educators and when he saw an opening for the school board seat, he applied and got on. After being on the board, he realized his civil engineering experience and running a construction company have helped the school system with its capital improvement projects and believes he’s saved the school close to a million dollars since he’s been on the board. He’s doing it for the kids and his special needs child.
There was no one issue for Shull who is running because “all of the issues are important as we are dealing with our kids’ education.” If elected, he promised to attend every meeting possible and to listen to every issue that’s brought up and deal with them with his heart.”
The candidates were pretty much in agreement on a number of things including having School Resource Officers in every school to address concerns about school safety and security; not having a problem making Clifton Academy the middle school again and Covington Middle School the Central Office, in the name of what’s best for the children as well as the most efficient use of tax dollars; promoting to parent’s the importance of school attendance; that education of the students was a top priority when it came to budget priorities; and none of them really like Standards of Learning testing in connection with student promotion and retention and believe they should be updated.
At the conclusion of the questioning, each candidate was given three minutes to wrap up and give some closing comments. Umstead believes he has a lot to offer the school board. He threatened to run for every school board election over the next four years until he made it. “And the question you are going to have to answer is, I wish you were there sooner,” said Umstead. He said he also understands public education, budget and finances, curriculum, and SOL testing. The best thing he would offer is to empathize and demand communication, to ensure the school system improves immensely. He closed by saying that with all the help the school system needs and with his two master’s degrees and a doctorate, neither he nor his wife has been asked to come help the school system. He wondered out loud why that was and urged the audience to think about that.
Shull acknowledged that he didn’t have fancy degrees like the two other candidates but went straight from high school into the workforce. He’s been in law enforcement for 20 years. He admitted to not knowing about the union but what makes up for that is that “I have heart.” He promised that if elected, he’d use every decision to put kids 100% first. He would listen to disenfranchised teachers, as many feel like they are not being heard, especially when it comes to the school merger.
Littleton was thankful for the opportunity to have been on the board for the past year. He believes it’s his civic duty to have a seat on the board. He’s hoping to make a difference in special education for the state as a current member on the Department of Education’s Special Education Advisory Committee.
“We all are here for the same reason; we want our kids to succeed and give them the best tools possible,” said Littleton in conclusion.
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