Kanawha County school board members voted unanimously Monday to appoint Jim Crawford, who's been on the board 16 years, as their new president and to appoint as their president pro tem Ryan White, meaning he will fill in when Crawford is unavailable to lead.
White, 37, who took office in July 2014, was previously the board's newest member. But Ric Cavender, executive director of the Charleston Main Streets economic and community development organization, now is the newest member on the five-person board. He won May's election for the seat of former board president Robin Rector, who decided not to run for re-election.
School board members are elected at large during the primaries.
Crawford, 79, also won re-election in May to another four-year term as a member.
"I'm one of these kind of guys who believes that everybody needs to have an opportunity to speak their piece, and once a decision is made, I'm going to support what the board does," Crawford said.
Also Monday, the board unanimously approved a personnel agenda that included transferring Gerald L. Comer, curriculum assistant principal at Bridgeview Elementary, in South Charleston, to the principal position at Overbrook Elementary, in South Hills.
The personnel agenda gave notice that Barbara J. Floren retired as Overbrook's principal on June 30, the end of last fiscal year.
Fred Albert, president of Kanawha County's branch of the American Federation of Teachers union, announced Monday that the Kanawha branch's executive board unanimously voted last week to donate $12,000 from the union's general budget, which is supported by members' dues, to all employees - AFT members or not - at all four Kanawha schools damaged in the June 23-24 floods.
He estimated that about $75 would go to each employee at Herbert Hoover High and Clendenin Elementary, the hardest-hit schools, and about $50 apiece would go to workers at Clendenin and Bridge elementary schools. He said employees often spend their own money for job-related resources and personal belongings that they keep in classrooms and kitchens and other school areas.
"Maybe [it could be used for] something that they had on their desk that they cherished that has been lost, maybe a new chair to sit in, maybe a book that they found very valuable to them," Albert said. "We're just giving it to them to spend as they so desire."
He said the state arm of the union raised more than $5,000 during a recent union-sponsored fellowship and professional development week at the National Guard's Camp Dawson, in Preston County, and $850 of that will be donated to Bridge Elementary because some teachers at the camp had friends who teach there. He said it likely will be given to the union's building representative there to decide how to distribute.
Board members didn't discuss the flood during the public portion of the meeting, although Superintendent Ron Duerring thanked them for their attentiveness to the issue.
The board spent about a half hour in closed session to discuss an unspecified property issue before adjourning with no action taken.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.