|
New Highland school board up for election
Billingsley seeks first term
BY ANNE ADAMS • STAFF WRITER
 | | Kirk Billingsley |
|
MONTEREY - Highland resident Kirk Billingsley believes education in this county can be improved, and he's tossing his hat in the ring to run for the Highland County School Board this year. "Highland County's been good to me over the years. I decided to raise my own children here and felt I had an obligation."
Billingsley said he doesn't have a particular agenda for his candidacy, but is interested in helping guide the schools here to excel. "It was more a sense of responsibility that I think I could, particularly with my budget oversight experience and strength in finance, I thought I had something to give back to the county," he added.
"I've got some ideas," he said. "I'd like to see our school system improve. We've got a unique opportunity, I think, when I look around I see kids above average. We've got a good school system, and very low student/teacher ratio, so I'd like to see us be able to excel in some areas. I think right now we're a little bit below state average and I don't see a good reason for being below state average. Our kids have less distractions than kids in other areas and I know it's not the school board that's going to make the difference. It's going to have to be the parent involvement, community involvement. I'm hoping through this position I can sort of highlight areas (where) the whole community can help out for the benefit of our children."
Billingsley is a certified public accountant and currently serves as chief financial officer for Pendleton Community Bank based in Franklin, W.Va., which has a roughly $240 million operation budget he manages and analyzes in conjunction with its board of directors. "So I understand the policy-making role and how the board should operate, and not to get into the details, just handle the policy level. I deal very closely with the board of directors at Pendleton, rewriting and expanding policies," he explained.
Though he has not yet reviewed Highland's school budget in detail, "I know we're well over (spending) $12,000 per kid," he said. "With that kind of money ... (and) I realize a lot is school lunches and stuff you don't have control over, but at that level it seems to me we should have above average students." Billingsley is referring to SAT scores, which he notes are "always behind the state average. I feel like that's something we could work on. SAT is not a thing we look at, but I think we have an opportunity here. My sister teaches in North Carolina and had a class for English as second language; she talks about the hurdles she has just to teach them simple things, and we don't have that. We have an ability to have our kids move on at a pretty good pace, and I'd like to make sure we're doing that."
Billingsley graduated from Highland High School, and recognizes there are a lot more offerings now than when he was in school. "We didn't have calculus," he noted, "and there were things that were missing I think we have now. I don't think we're missing anything now ... we have such opportunities with distance learning. I mean, my daughter's taking Chinese now; obviously that was not an alternative years ago ... I think the curricula is much better. We didn't have such thing as AP classes then."
Billingsley said he has not had a chance to research many of the issues related to education yet. "There's a lot of homework I have left to do, like I don't understand all the No Child Left Behind policies and standards of learning ... I'm going have to get up to speed. But we have a very good superintendent in place now which seems to be respected by the community as well as the teachers," he said. "The school system is in very good shape as far as it's stable at this point in time and he is very knowledgeable ... All three of the new school board members are going to ... be going into this somewhat blind and we're all going to have to ... do a lot of reading. There's obviously school board seminars we'll have to take advantage of."
Billingsley favors staggered terms for the board to avoid the complete turnover next year will bring. "I know you can't have any more on this board than the board of supervisors but you definitely need more people. Three people is very unfortunate because I wouldn't be able to call on any one of them and bounce an idea off of them and when you have that situation, you end up bouncing ideas at the meeting and it makes you sound like a buffoon. I have to think through things and play devil's advocate and talk through certain situations to make sure I understand it from both sides. It would be nice to have the ability to talk to another school board member before the meeting but when there's only three, that's considered a meeting, and you can't do that. So that's the unfortunate part about having only three people. You don't want to find yourself in the situation you're in right now where you have three blind guys going in, that don't know, or who are going to be probably ineffective for six months or longer anyway. There will be a lot of time spent learning."
Current members
Billingsley pointed to the board's term now and the challenges it faced. "I'm glad they made it through. That was a very tough situation and I wouldn't consider running if I even thought that was going to be the (case during the) next four years. That was just horrible what they had to go through," he said. "But here they are at the end of their terms ... they're leaving it in a lot better shape than they had it and that's good," he said.
Billingsley said he would have no conflict of interest as a school board member, though he notes the occasion might come up where his own children are involved. He says any situation the board faces would make him think about policies that affect his own children. "With kids in the system," he said, "you've got a vested interest ... Besides that, I don't have a lot of conflict; I'm working outside the county and I don't have a lot of people I'm beholden to, no one can twist my arm."
School board duties
"Obviously you hear the children are the future. That's a fact. The beneficiaries of a good school system are not only the children graduating from that school system but the communities in which they live, and many of these kids who are graduating will probably end up staying right here. This is so important for the quality of life in Highland County as well as our ability to attract business and work to create business. In the long run, the education of our kids is going to be one of the most important things for the future of Highland County."
One thing Billingsley believes is important is long-range planning. "I think you need at least a 10-year plan, a fiveyear plan, and a three-year plan," he said. "What you're going to do changes as time goes, but you need to look at where our personnel are and what changes are going to happen."
The numbers of teachers who will retire in coming years is something Billingsley believes needs to be addressed. "That might be as much of an opportunity as anything," he said.
While he knows the position isn't popular with teachers, he'd like to see an evaluation system that's not steeped in tenure. "One of the problems in American education is that we hire teachers and then tell them what they're going to teach and sometimes they don't have advanced degrees in the subject. I know it's expensive, but that shows the person has a true interest, and if they have a true interest that person is going to very likely be able to share that with a child. I'd like to see (that), particularly with the high school here. It seems like we've got a real strong elementary and middle and something falls apart at the high school level. I'm hoping that we have an opportunity to get some well qualified folks with masters in areas that they're teaching in."
Attracting such teachers is going to be the tough part, he added. "It's going to take money. Right now, every teacher gets pretty much the same thing and it doesn't make sense to me ... I guess it's the fault of the tenure system. I come at it with a business background. I'd like to see a performance-based evaluation system for teachers, not just cost of living plus step. What incentive is that to try to do better? That's the way you keep the good and weed out the bad. I'd like to see policies put in place for that ... I've gotten a cold shoulder from teachers about that, though."
Billingsley said he likes the idea behind standards of learning, but "when they get to a point where they just teach to an SOL, they're missing the opportunity to just work for children and develop their critical thinking skills. It's good and bad, as with everything," he said. "I need to know more about it because I can't come out and say, by golly, we need to get rid of them because I see the value in SOLs. They're not perfect but we need something ... (The system) hampers the good teachers but it forces others to step up."
Billingsley is open to looking at new approaches in Highland schools. "I'm all for that. It's not a perfect school system by any means, and this would be the perfect opportunity, although I don't want to create a bunch of guinea pigs out there and fail miserably, but at the same time, if there are some things that really have merit, it would be great to try things here ... I'm not so sure a charter school would be the worst thing in the world for us because we have so many guidelines that don't make sense for us."
Aside from minor issues, Billingsley said he has not heard too many complaints about Highland schools.
"I think probably one of the main things I've heard from others is that they're worried ... we're not getting the bang for the buck. We're spending a lot of money per kid and we don't have a lot of control over that, but we should be able to expect them to do better. Hopefully through policies and procedures (we can) encourage teachers to go the extra mile. I can't get into specifics but I think there's ways I'd like to see the community more involved. The high school level you've got kids that are interested in certain things. Let's get them out there ... a lot of the businesses, hospital or whatever is willing to take on the kids out there to explore.
About the candidate
¦ Kirk Billingsley, 46 ¦ Graduated Highland High School ¦ Small accounting business with his wife, Kim ¦ Chief financial officer, Pendleton County Community Bank; former board member, Blue Grass Valley Bank ¦ Two daughters in school, ages 15 and 11 ¦ Member, Monterey United Methodist Church, Highland County Recreation Commission; past member, Monterey Lions Club, The Highland Center board of directors, Highland Education Foundation, Highland Telephone board, and Highland Medical Center board.
| 
