Campaign email: joshuahinebaugh@gmail.com
Age: 45
Employment: Senior specialist in plant automation at Viatris, a pharmaceutical company.
Education: Associate’s degree in computer information management from a technical college called Computer Tech in Fairmont, West Virginia.
Why are you running for school board?
I think our school board and members need to have more transparency. Get the parents more involved. So, I have a 10-year-old daughter currently in the school system and kind of feel like we’re on the outside looking in. … I’m just running to help provide that transparency and try to make the best decisions for our schools.
What makes you a good candidate for the school board?
I think I’ll be a good candidate because I’ll question everything. I’m not just going to go with the status quo just because, let’s say, the state or federal government will give us money for the program. I’m going to ask questions as to why we’re getting that money or why they decided to do that if it indeed would be the best fit for our students.
Please name a public leader you admire and explain why.
Ronald Reagan is probably one of the best leaders that I’ve ever lived under…. I was young whenever he was in office, but I just liked everything he stood for and how he handled himself, and he was just a good, cool-headed, calm president.
What is the most important issue facing your school board, and what would you do about it if elected?
So currently one of the biggest issues facing our school board is school closures in our area. Our school utilization is way down, and that’s just due to the declining younger population. I’d like to be able to somehow fix or keep the teachers that are here. I think that’s one of the biggest issues as we lose our population, so then we’re forced to close down schools. So if we can have better-paying either teacher jobs or just jobs in the area in general, that will keep the younger generation here in the area.
How concerned are you about school safety, and what if anything should be done to improve it?
School safety is always an issue. I mean, you never know, you never know even with the safety resource officers there, you just kind of never know what can happen. I mean, there are a lot of crazy people in the world so what I’d like to do is work more with local law enforcement officers or find a way to get more safety resource officers in the schools. Currently, we have a couple of areas where we only have one officer dedicated to two schools … trying to find funding for that for more resources somehow, some way – I don’t know what that looks like at this point.
Do you have any concerns about the way history is taught in your district’s schools, and if so, what are they?
I think we’re going away from what everyone was brought up and taught, we’re going more toward critical race. I think that’s probably what this question was about, critical race theory. So, I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding of what critical race theory is, it’s not white or Black, it’s about the laws that were made pertaining mainly to the white man which is, I don’t feel that that’s the truth. Honestly, I think we need to get back to our roots and actually teach why, and how things went on. So, they always say history repeats itself. So how can we improve that to make that known?
Do you think there are circumstances when books should be removed from school libraries, and if so, what kind of books should be removed?
I don’t necessarily think that any books should be removed. If someone has a view and they want to read about it, that’s fine. As long as they’re age-appropriate, I’m fine with that.
