Four Republicans are vying for the District 3 State Board of Education seat, which represents five counties between Birmingham and Montgomery.

The primary is on March 5. Cody Cumbie, Ann Eubank, Kelly Mooney and Charlotte Meadows are candidates to replace longtime incumbent Stephanie Bell. Melissa Snowden may still appear on the ballot but withdrew her candidacy in December. There are no Democratic candidates for the position.

AL.com discussed the candidates’ backgrounds and policy platforms.

Meet the Candidates

Michael “Cody” Cumbie works for Harrigan Lumber Company in Monroeville, AL. He lives in Uriah with his wife and 2-year-old son, with one child on the way in May. He said he grew up with a mom who was a teacher.

Ann Eubank is a member of the Alabama Conservative Coalition. She’s retired and spent 20 years as an assistant controller and bookkeeper.

Kelly Mooney is formerly a Briarwood Christian School educator and administrator. She lives with her husband, state Rep. Arnold Mooney. She’s currently a client specialist at OneAscent Wealth Management.

Charlotte Meadows was a state representative for District 74 from 2019 to 2022, where she served on the House Education Policy Committee. She’s also served on the Montgomery Board of Education. Meadows is married and has three children and three grandchildren.

Candidate responses have been edited for clarity, grammar, and length.

Why are you running for school board?

Cumbie

Cumbie said he wants to help make “good decisions for the school and help with any big decisions. That’s what made me decide to really just to be involved.”

“My main view is let’s simplify the school systems. Let’s simplify it to the best education possible. And at the end of the day, it’s all about the kids,” Cumbie said. “Let’s try to all come together and make a decision that will best benefit the upcoming kids and the current kids that are in the school system.”

Eubank

Eubank said she’s wanted someone from the Alabama Conservative Coalition to run for the last decade and decided to run this year.

“I’ve been beating my head against the wall of the education system for about 13 years trying to get rid of Common Core national standards,” Eubanks said. “So now I’m going to try from inside the system to see how much success we can have.”

[Editor’s note: Alabama stopped using official ‘Common Core’ standards a decade ago. Recent laws, including the Literacy and Numeracy acts, further adjusted what Alabama students learn in reading and math.]

Mooney

Mooney said education “has always been my heartbeat.”

“I feel like it’s time to use this passion and commitment on the Alabama State School board to give our children the best opportunity for success in the classroom which translates to success in life,” Mooney said.

Meadows

Meadows said the current board needs to be more focused on student achievement.

“I have been in the legislature and I do know what it takes to get a bill passed and I do know how to work with the legislators. They’re very critical to particularly the funding of this state school board. My ability to work with the budget chairs and the education policy chairs would be helpful if I’m elected,” Meadows said.

What are your recommendations for improving Alabama students’ proficiency in math and reading?

Cumbie

“Look at math and reading as a necessity for kids. I would push to simplify things,” Cumbie said. Parents have talked to him about how difficult it is to help their children with math problems.

He also wants to focus on reading comprehension instead of timed reading.

“Let’s understand what we’re reading,” Cumbie said.

Eubank

Eubank wants to move away from federal standards and focus on Alabama’s academic standards. She also wants to “get rid of the multiple layers of administrators that is costing millions of dollars.”

“They’ve taken a lot of the good master teachers out of the classroom where they’re desperately needed and put them in administrative positions and pay them lots of money to teach our teachers who don’t know how to teach coming out of college,” Eubank said.

Eubank also wants to focus on high-impact tutors during the school day instead of before and after-school tutoring.

“I think that that money is better spent by lowering the numbers in the classroom and putting high-impact tutors in the school day to work with those kids that are behind in reading and math until they get caught up,” Eubank said.

Eubank also wants to “get rid of social, emotional learning standards that was placed in the schools and go back to fact-based standards and not social, emotional, psychological, and emotional values and competencies that are not the same as Alabama citizens’ values.” She said these standards are counter to Alabama’s Christian morals.

“Every time we turn around, they’re trying to change the attitude and values of Alabama students away from their parents and separate kids from the families emotionally by replacing schools and the government as the place they need to go to for help,” Eubank said.

“I would remove and get rid of the woke policies. The DEI, CRT, social emotional learning is woke. The ‘Marxification of Education’ (book by James Lindsay) has to stop. The kids need to learn how to write again,” Eubank said. “They don’t know how to write a paper, they don’t know words. They can’t read because of the three word and one picture process they use instead of phonics or some of the other reading programs that work. We use a reading program that doesn’t work and we wonder why they can’t read.”

Meadows

Meadows said implementing the Literacy Act would help but also mandating the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) for all teachers, not just those in grades three and below.

“We’ve got a ton of kids who don’t know how to read,” Meadows said. “So we need to teach those teachers how to teach the skill of reading. That seems so very basic. Until a child can read, they’re really not going to be able to be successful at any other subject.”

When it comes to math, Meadows said administrators should alter class schedules.

“I think there’s probably a need to really revamp the daily schedule for children in elementary grades so that there’s more than a 30-minute or 50-minute time slot for reading and more than a 50-minute time slot for math. I think the whole daily schedule should revolve around reading and math and then other stuff as it’ll fit in. That would take buy in from the community.”

Mooney

Mooney said students at Briarwood had difficulty testing under Common Core math standards.

“I think that the Common Core part of math curriculum needs to be taken out,” Mooney said.

“We really do need to get that out of it and get the back to basics,” she said. “We tried experiments with our children in education through the implementation of national standards, but they took us on a detour in our common sense curriculum. I think we need to raise the standards and not lower them and work harder on that.”

How would you handle complaints about inappropriate content in school libraries?

Cumbie

Cumbie said every child should have a library portfolio with permission slips. “I think parents should know what their kids are able to read, get their hands on. I think that families have the right to choose what their kids read.”

Eubank

Eubank said the state school board should remove age-inappropriate books.

“If somebody came to me and showed me that book and told me what they felt was inappropriate for that age group, I would vote to remove that book from that age group. That doesn’t mean that I want to burn the book.” Eubank said. “What it means is that book is not appropriate for that age group. I would vote ‘No,’ because what’s good for a ninth grader is not good for kindergarten.”

Mooney

Mooney said parents and their children should discuss gender, politics, and religion at home.

“We need to listen to parents, because parents know what’s best for their children,” Mooney said. “What the schools need to be about is educating our children. I think if it gets to be a gray area, the schools just need to stay away from it.”

Meadows

Meadows said the state school board has yet to focus on libraries.

“I don’t think we should ban books, but I think there should be a place for appropriate books to be put in libraries,” Meadows said.

Does the state’s guidance for local districts about book challenges need to be changed?

Cumbie

“I’m not too familiar on that subject,” Cumbie said. “I don’t know where I would stand on it because I don’t know much about it.”

Eubank

Eubank said the school board has “lost its authority” and should mandate a deadline for policy changes.

“I know that the state school board has asked all school systems in the state to develop a process where people can object to a book for whatever reason. So I’m sure that’s going to be done, but they did not give a time limit on when they wanted that done. I think it’s important,” Eubank said. “I would make sure that if we sent out a memo asking for schools to do a process that they have a time limit on it to get it done,” Eubank said.

Mooney

“As far as the reconsideration of books, the local schools know their schools better than the state board does,” Mooney said. “I think when it gets to be something that draws attention away from just the education and gets to be a hotbed of discussion, we need to have common sense in those areas. “

Meadows

Meadows said school librarians should separate books by age and grade level. Librarians should put books for older students on the top shelf so young children can’t physically reach the books.

“I think the state board should put forth a policy that says there should be appropriate places in a school library for books that are meant for adults,” Meadows said. “Then there should be another place for books that are meant for teenagers. Then everything else would be in a children’s section. So anything that’s designed for children up to age 13.”