[Nfbwv-talk] news release

[Karen McDonald]

Hello, everyone.
This came from the Charleston Gazette.  Take note that the 
superintendent is totally deaf.  Could be interesting for us.  
The release is below.
Karen


 State school board hires new superintendent for deaf, blind 
schools

By Ryan Quinn

The West Virginia Board of Education voted Friday to hire a new 
superintendent for the state Schools for the Deaf and the Blind.

State education officials said evidence suggests Martin Keller 
Jr., who will begin leading the Romney schools Sept.  16, is the 
first deaf superintendent in the schools' history, which 
stretches back to 1870.

Keller, 45, will have an annual salary of $110,000.  State school 
board attorney Mary Catherine Tuckwiller said he'll take over 
from Mark Gandolfi, the schools' chief financial officer who's 
been serving as interim superintendent since the June 30 
retirement of former superintendent Lynn Boyer.  Tuckwiller said 
Boyer made $120,000 in the position, and Gandolfi received a 
$3,000 monthly supplement for serving as interim superintendent 
atop his roughly $78,200 regular yearly pay.

Keller, who gave a telephone interview to the Gazette-Mail using 
a sign-language interpreter, said he's spent 20 years in deaf 
education, including 14 as principal of various schools for the 
deaf.  He resigned last week from his position as middle and high 
school principal of the Indiana School for the Deaf.

He grew up in Wisconsin and comes from a family of 10, and his 
parents and siblings are all deaf.  He has five degrees, 
including a master's in deaf education from Western Maryland 
College, a master's in education administration from Xavier 
University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a doctorate in deaf education 
from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.

He said he'll focus on establishing an extra year transition 
program that will help students better prepare for college or the 
workforce before they leave the schools, which serve students 
ages 3 to 21.  He also wants to establish a STEAM program - 
science, technology, engineering, arts, agriculture and math - at 
the schools, alongside robotics and computer coding classes.

"I'm trying to stay in touch with what the future holds," he 
said.

Keller also wants to learn more about educating blind students, 
and will be visiting the Helen Keller National Center for 
Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults in Long Island, New York, to learn 
to read braille.

Tuckwiller said 19 people applied for the position and she, state 
school board member Gayle Manchin, school board Director of 
Operations Donna Peduto and Julian Woods, who is the state 
Department of Education's executive director of human resources, 
screened 10 candidates to select five for in-person interviews.

A committee - including Manchin, fellow board member Bill White, 
state Deputy Schools Superintendent Cindy Daniel, Hampshire 
County Delegate Ruth Rowan, and others, including teachers and 
alumni of the schools - interviewed the finalists in Romney 
earlier this month, and the state school board interviewed Keller 
in closed session at its regular meeting last week.

The seven voting school board members who called into the 
teleconference meeting Friday - Tom Campbell and Beverly Kingery 
were absent - approved Keller's hire in a voice vote with no nays 
heard.

Manchin, who headed the interview committee for the search, said 
Keller impressed her with his experience, vision and ability to 
be a role model for students.

"We want to encourage every child to believe that with hard work 
you can accomplish what you want in life," she said.  "I think, 
many times, parents and teachers lower expectations for some 
students, and he is a prime example of less was not expected of 
him than anyone else, and he rose to those challenges."

Earlier this year, Gov.  Earl Ray Tomblin vetoed a bill that had 
passed nearly unanimously in both houses of the Legislature and 
would have made the schools eligible to apply for grants under 
the state School Building Authority's "needs" fund, which is 
about 10 times larger than the fund the schools are currently 
limited to applying to.

The governor also vetoed $1.5 million in one-time funding for the 
schools from a widely supported appropriations bill.  Architects 
have said the schools need more than $82 million worth of work, 
and Rowan and White, who is also a member of the schools' Board 
of Advisers, said the vetoes angered and surprised them.

In his veto message of the SBA funding bill, Tomblin said he 
didn't have "a firm understanding of what the Schools for the 
Deaf and Blind's needs are, to become financially viable well 
into the future." He asked the state board to "commission an 
independent, objective assessment of their needs, both facilities 
and curriculum-related." Manchin said Friday that the board has 
sent a report to the governor.

"I actually just found out about some of those issues," Keller 
said when asked about his plans to fix the schools' 
infrastructure.  "And I'm looking at establishing a strategic 
plan with a planning committee so that we can show the value of 
the residential school program to the state."

Rowan, the Hampshire delegate, said the schools provide services 
for more than 700 students across the state, including more than 
100 who live on the Romney campus.