MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A volunteer firefighter with both a chemistry degree and a Master’s in business leadership is vying for one of the open seats on the Monongalia County Board of Education.
Matthew Kirby offers his own brand of education, his family’s ties to education in the state, and his desire to improve the school system for his two young sons.
“My whole family’s always been somewhat in education,” he said. “I’ve seen those different experiences and different things. So I think my perspective would be somewhat unique or somewhat different than just, ‘Oh I have kids in the system that I’d like to try to help and influence and make it better for them.'”
Kirby’s wife is a former assistant principal, and his mother is a former teacher.
“We don’t just ask them to teach,” he said. “We also ask them to be a counselor, be a friend, to make sure… I mean the school system itself is asked to make sure that they’re fed. They feed them breakfast and lunch every day. So the teachers are way more than just teachers.”
Kirby said it becomes even more difficult for teachers to operate due to the different way children learn, which makes any type of “one-size-fits-all” solution likely to fail.
“One kid learns by seeing, another kid learns by listening, the other kid learns by doing,” he said. “That’s a lot of different ways that you have to approach one subject just so everyone understands.”
That’s part of why Kirby advocates putting more aides in the classrooms, particularly in younger grade levels.
“Maybe if we can put an aide in that room for half a day, that would give that teacher so much support,” he said. “I’m sure that teacher could use that extra support at times.”
He also said Monongalia County should consider additional supplemental compensation for teachers, even after the five percent pay raise that ended the nine-day statewide teacher work stoppage.
“I don’t know that was enough for them, but maybe there’s a way Mon County can figure out a way to try to get teachers and service personnel more money,” he said. “We have to look at all the figures before we can say yes to that, but there’s always stuff like that that needs addressed by the Board of Education.”
This story is the third in a series of stories about the Board of Education candidates, who are appearing on Morgantown AM in the run up to the May 8 election.
We previously interviewed Melanie Rogers and Gary Drvar.