{"id":2238,"date":"2016-04-19T07:56:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T11:56:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2238"},"modified":"2016-04-19T07:56:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T11:56:50","slug":"pete-gordon-and-beth-michael-face-off-may-10-for-morgan-county-school-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2238","title":{"rendered":"Pete Gordon and Beth Michael Face Off May 10 for Morgan County School Board"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pete Gordon and Beth Michael will be on the May 10 ballot for Morgan County School Board from District 2. John Rowland is also running, but he\u2019s running unopposed in District 1.<\/p>\n<p>Gordon is a popular former math teacher at Berkeley Springs High School. Michael is a housewife and was head of the PTA at the now closed Greenwood School.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/berkeleyspringscommunitymatters.com\/2016\/04\/13\/this-week-in-morgan-county-beth-michael\/?embed\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden;\" webkitallowfullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Michael said she made a decision at the last minute to run for school board.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe closing of Greenwood pushed me into action,\u201d Michael told<em> This Week in Morgan County with Russell Mokhiber.<\/em> \u201cThe community surrounding the school wanted to keep the school open. It\u2019s been there for a long time. They feel strongly about smaller schools. We have been told there is no money to keep it open. And that was the driving force behind closing it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, funds are short,\u201d Michael said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t necessarily believe that closing the school will solve the problem. You make cuts across the board. You don\u2019t just pick one community or one school and say &#8212; we are going to cut you entirely and merge you in with another one. You make even cuts across the board so that everyone is feeling the burn &#8212; not just one community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Will she be campaigning to re-open Greenwood?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce the state board approves the closing of Greenwood, it\u2019s finished,\u201d Michael said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is not much else we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Michael said that during the debate over the closing of Greenwood, the school board \u201cgave us these broad numbers, they never broke it down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey never said &#8212; this amount goes for x, this amount goes for y, this amount goes to z,\u201d Michael said. \u201cIf you are going to close a community school, you need to get down to specifics. You need to get down to the nitty gritty and account for each and every dollar. It didn\u2019t seem like it was adding up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why is she running for school board?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI bring a diverse background,\u201d Michael said. \u201cPete Gordon is a very nice man, but he\u2019s a retired teacher. That will make three retired teachers on the school board. Success to any board is diversity &#8212; people of different backgrounds working together to make our schools successful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Michael said she supported the school levy both times it came up. The Greenwood community overwhelmingly voted against the levy the first time and voted it against it the second time &#8212; by not as large a margin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have kids in school so I will probably always vote for a levy,\u201d Michael said. \u201cAny levy is better than nothing. By closing Greenwood school, I thought they had made people angry and turned them against the levy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was with a group of people who worked really hard to get people to vote for it the second time,\u201d Michael said. \u201cPeople thought &#8212; they are going to close Greenwood anyway, why vote for the levy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the levy came up and it lost the first time, we lost a lot of really good teachers. There were a lot of changes within the school and that discouraged people. That was the biggest reason the levy failed in Greenwood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Does she believe this election is a referendum on Greenwood?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe,\u201d Michael said. \u201cI can\u2019t speak for other people. Some people will think that. I don\u2019t know that everyone will think that. I hope that they think I\u2019m running because I have the best interest of the kids and every child at heart. That\u2019s why I\u2019m running.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How is she doing in the campaign?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome days I think &#8212; I\u2019m doing really well. Other days I think I\u2019m not making an impact at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI figured I will put my message out there and people will vote how they feel. You can\u2019t sense what the outcome might be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s it like to be be running for office the first time?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s terrifying,\u201d Michael said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI like Pete. He\u2019s a great guy. We have the same interests at heart &#8212; the kids come first we will do what we can to make our schools better for the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/berkeleyspringscommunitymatters.com\/2016\/04\/13\/this-week-in-morgan-county-pete-gordon\/?embed\" width=\"620\" height=\"349\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden;\" webkitallowfullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Asked to explain his popularity among students and parents alike, Gordon said \u201cit has to do with respect and dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was passionate about my teaching and about my students,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cI respected them. I never got angry in the classroom. If I had to talk with somebody, I would talk with them some other place. I would call students out of the classroom to commend them, or talk to them about behavior issues. But I respected my students. I treated them with dignity. And I think they respected me in return.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How can we attract more quality teachers to Morgan County.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want the best for our young people. That involves attracting and keeping quality teachers,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cBut salaries in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia are $10,000 or more higher than here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gordon said that tax money collected in Morgan County goes to the state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think we get as much back from the state as we send to the state,\u201d Gordon said.\u201cOne hundred percent of the levy stays here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou need good teachers, good schools and you also need families that feed those children, instill values in children,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cGenerally speaking, what families did in the past is now being done more and more by the schools. We are giving free breakfasts and lunches to our children so they can learn. How can you learn on an empty stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPoverty level is 70 percent. We send home 350 backpacks every weekend with food. We feed our students during the week, but we send them home with food for the weekends. A lot of students don\u2019t see their parents that often and don\u2019t get fed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite all the problems, Gordon said that Morgan County has a strong educational system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe send students to some of the best trade schools, we send them to some of the best community colleges. Our class of 2012 was a star class. In my one calculus classroom that year, we had students that went to Cornell, Virginia Tech, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth and West Point.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCould we be better? Yes. Can we point to faults in our school system? Yes. But we are generally preparing students for life and work after high school.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for Greenwood, Gordon said the school board was in a tough spot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all see the advantages of small schools,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cGreenwood is a wonderful school. It\u2019s an advantage for students to go to a school where they know everybody, they get extra care &#8212; it is like a family. I\u2019m afraid we got to a point where it was inevitable. People say &#8212; there are other things that could have been cut. But what are those other things that might have been cut? Free after school program, free lunches and breakfasts, and the alternative school at the high school.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pete Gordon and Beth Michael will be on the May 10 ballot for Morgan County School Board from District 2. John Rowland is also running, but he\u2019s running unopposed in District 1. Gordon is a popular former math teacher at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2238\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2239,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions\/2239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}