Terry George, superintendent Fayette County Schools, right, points out problems in the boiler room to congressman Evan Jenkins at Anstead Middle School. Thomas Campbell, member State Board of Education, listens in background.
ANSTED, W.Va. — Fayette County’s facility crises is the symptom of an unfair one-size-fits-all funding formula, said State Board of Education and School Building Authority member Tom Campbell Monday while standing in Ansted Middle School gym.
Campbell toured Collins Middle, Ansted Middle and Meadow Bridge High schools Monday alongside U.S. Congressman Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., and Scott Raines, Director of School Planning and Construction with the West Virginia School Building Authority.
Campbell, who said he’d never toured Ansted before, believes the state aid formula, which funds county school districts based on student enrollment, has been unfair to large, rural eastern counties.
“The eastern mountain counties — Preston, Randolph, Pocahontas, Greenbrier and Fayette — have suffered more from a per pupil formula than the rest of the state because of our geography,” he explained.
The state aid formula dictates how many teachers and service personnel are funded through the state. Counties like Fayette with many low enrollment schools must staff buildings with funds that otherwise could be directed to maintenance or curriculum advancements.
“We have to do something to modify some of these existing conditions as well as come up with a longterm plan,” Campbell explained. “There are some facilities here that need attention sooner than five years…