One candidate in Kanawha County's school board race, for which early voting goes through Saturday, has stuck out for his denouncement of the current board's record, while the other three competitors have little to no criticism.
Before he even officially filed to run, former Charleston city councilman Adam Knauff acquired the domain name kanawhacounty schools.com as his campaign website and sent to media an email criticizing the school system, currently at kcs.kana.k12.wv.us, for not getting it first.
"The Kanawha County Board Of Education is completely reactionary and is never proactive," Knauff wrote to reporters, criticizing the board for not securing its "most likely domain names."
In the time since, he's also denounced the board for, among other things, spending money on curriculum programs aligned to Common Core standards, the math and English standards that West Virginia's statewide education standards greatly resemble.
Knauff's website leads with "you'll never have enough money if you don't know how to spend it." While criticizing the county for allegedly not adequately funding infrastructure or staff, his website touts his City Council vote against raising Charleston's sales tax from .5 percent to 1 percent, and he said he expects he'll vote to keep the school system's excess levy at the same level if he's elected to school board.
Candidates for the nonpartisan school board race will be elected during next Tuesday's primary election and take office July 1.
In interviews, Knauff has criticized opponents Ric Cavender and Jim Crawford for not coming out against the idea of raising the school system's excess levy when it expires after the 2018-19 school year.
"I am not convinced that we do need new revenue," Knauff said.
Retired construction manager Bill Carpenter - who said he'd consider any possibility for increasing funding, has no criticism of the board but wants to see more state funding of education - is the fourth candidate for the two open board seats. Kanawha residents can vote for two of the four school board candidates when they go to the polls, but should know, specifically, when it comes to Carpenter and Cavender, that only one, not both, of those men can be elected to the board because of restrictions on how many people can represent the same district.
Voters ultimately have to approve the higher property taxes that come with excess levies, but school board members have to propose a rate for their consideration. For next fiscal year, if Kanawha were to have a "100 percent" excess levy, like other counties, instead of a capped levy, the school system would've received $22.8 million extra.
Knauff's anti-new-revenue stance comes as Kanawha County schools are expecting a $2.3 million drop in general budget revenue for next school year. Proposed cuts include 90 fewer positions, although not nearly that many layoffs because of retirements and other factors, and a $300,000 cut to the repair and maintenance budget.
And his opposition to the Common Core standards comes despite the fact that state Board of Education policy requires counties to have those standards, albeit with the few customizations the state school board has made. West Virginia's current statewide standardized test is aligned to these standards and state education officials have stressed making sure any possible new standardized test is aligned as well.
Crawford, a 16-year board member, said he thinks the current board functions well and that longtime local Superintendent Ron Duerring has "never led us astray." He said many potential board members don't realize how much state law and policy constricts local school boards.
"His criticisms are unfounded," Crawford said of Knauff. "He's not there. He's doesn't know what's going on."
Knauff has called Kanawha's implementation this school year of Journeys elementary reading textbooks, and other instructional material, a waste of more than $1 million. He alleges that the school system told teachers they had to get rid of their previous material, before reversing and saying teachers could use them to supplement Journeys.
A county textbook adoption committee that included teachers recommended Journeys, which Duerring said cost $1.3 million. He said teachers weren't told to get rid of the previous material. He said the state mandated that counties get new elementary reading instructional material, and Journeys was on the list of state-vetted and state-allowed material.
Joey Wiseman, a state Department of Education executive director, said instructional material adoptions can be delayed for a year and that counties can use that time to, among other things, find free material or develop custom material that can be adopted with state board approval.
When talking about his wish for Kanawha teachers to develop customized county education standards - he didn't name criticism of Common Core beyond the fact it wasn't locally developed - Knauff suggested having lawyers look into the possibility.
"Is there anyone who can give you an objective answer to that?" Knauff said. "I mean, that's what the courts are for."
Knauff said he isn't necessarily opposed to Kanawha's $14 million 1-to-1 computing program that gave tablet computers to every middle and high school student in the county.
For his part, Cavender, executive director of the Charleston Main Streets community development organization, has largely campaigned on a positive message, stressing teamwork with other board members - although he said there's a perception that the board hasn't done all it can to include everyone in conversations. He hasn't given many specific goals, instead touting broad aims, like encouraging entrepreneurship in classrooms. He said it's "dangerous" to make comments about a board he's not currently part of and doesn't fully understand the decision-making process for.
"I think people will appreciate a candidate who is devoted to doing his research and weighing both sides of an issue fairly," he said, "before coming out and making a statement."
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1254, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.