PARSONS – During Governor Jim Justice’s State of the State Address, he outlined some proposed cuts to the state’s budget including eliminating the eight regional education service agencies, or RESAs.

These agencies provide service to public schools that cost the state more than $3.5 million per year. But Tucker County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Eddie Campbell said the county could not afford to have some of the necessary services RESA provides if they are abolished.
“We get so much from RESA,” Campbell said. “It is a shame to me that they have become such a pawn in the budgetary chess game at the state level. I see the financial benefit that our schools receive from having a RESA.”

Campbell said just from a sheer financial standpoint, being a part of RESA allows Tucker County Schools to purchase expensive software programs and software platforms they use which are important to the community.

“Our school messenger system which sends out our alerts on snow days and announcements was purchased at a discount because all 12 school systems in our RESA purchased that in a bundle,” he said. “We would not be able to purchase items like that on our own. There are probably two or three other platforms we have purchased by joining in a group purchase where the vendor has given us discounts because we are purchasing in bulk.”

Campbell said Tucker County Schools are part of the largest RESA in the state, with approximately 15,000 students that fall under their coverage.

“Whether it is educational platforms we are using or professional development platforms we are using, RESA has always gone to bat for us and gone to these vendors and has lobbied for discounts for us when our school systems go together. This has saved Tucker County thousands of dollars in these types of purchases. If RESA goes, so do those discounts.”
Campbell said without RESA, there would be no one there to organize the discounts or to speak for the counties, especially the small counties in the state. He said he does not see anyone else stepping up to the plate to organize these purchases.

“The sheer financial stand point would affect our bottom line if we wanted to continue to purchase these things,” Campbell said. “In a lot of those cases we would have to look at these and ask if we could afford to buy them and they are important. The school messenger system is important to us and we would have to invest the extra thousands of dollars to maintain that system. That comes directly out of our bottom line.”

He said another impact facing Tucker County would be the quality of professional development they are able to get from the staff of RESA.

“We could not pay for this as a county,” he said. “We are part of several professional initiatives in the county. We have a county-wide math program we are receiving professional development through RESA. We have a thinking maps professional development for our program at Davis Thomas Elementary Middle School. Those are just two examples where we have used RESA staff to come into our schools and provide professional development at very little or no cost to us at a county.”

Campbell said if RESA disappears, that professional development disappears.
“We don’t have a way to sustain those professional development opportunities financially. Just to be frank, I have read and saw comments that those would be replaced at the state level by the West Virginia Department of Education – but that is not going to happen. We don’t see people from the WVDOE in Tucker County. Even if they would try to replace that with their own school improvement professional development people, they will not be here at the level as RESA staff has been and I will not be able to send people to Charleston. Our county school system cannot afford that.”

Campbell said when it comes down to sheer numbers it is going to be costly to Tucker County Schools.

“As I have tried to make a point while writing letters and speaking to elected officials is for us, if RESA goes away, those services go away,” Campbell said. “There is no place in the Tucker County Schools budget to replace those things.”

Reports keep saying that the elimination of RESA will give control back to the counties. Campbell said he disagrees with that.

“RESAs don’t tell us what to do. RESAs do not control our decisions. They are not a bureaucracy as they have been described. For us, they are an extension of what we do in our county. They are instructional experts there and they are practicing people who come out and actually work with our teachers on providing better instruction for our students. To look at them in any other way is a complete misunderstanding and a misinterpretation of what they do,” Campbell said. “Local control, to us, is being able to say we want RESA to come in and help. We don’t have to use them but we do because of the great benefits there.”
Campbell is asking local residents to help by contacting local elected officials and ask them not to eliminate RESA.

“I am putting together a letter about the recent legislation,” he said. “I am also putting together a letter for the State Superintendent’s Association on behalf of the RESAs. RESA has taken a back seat – they are not an organization that sticks out – and most people do not understand the benefits we get from them. Anything I can do to educate people on the value of RESA and the impact of not having them is really important. If they can reach out to their legislators and tell them it is really important to Tucker County to have RESA, it would help make an impact. RESA is an easy target because nobody knows much about them.”

Other items Tucker County Schools utilize through RESA include cooperative for food purchases, office supplies, major maintenance issues like roofing and field turf.

“There is almost nothing we buy that we do not look to RESA for purchasing cooperatives,” Campbell said. “We save tens of thousands of dollars in our purchasing through RESA cooperatives. They help us with complicated things like WVEIS and when we have complications with payroll. These are all services we don’t pay for. To tally up the benefits we get completely offsets their cost. They go out and get grants so we can have professional development opportunities. We don’t have to go out and secure those grants. I don’t have grant writers in this county.”