It’s the 12 Days of Ballotpedia! Your gift powers the trusted, unbiased information voters need heading into 2026. Donate now!
William Campbell (Virginia)
Ballotpedia provides comprehensive election coverage of the 100 largest cities in America by population as well as mayoral, city council, and district attorney election coverage in state capitals outside of the 100 largest cities. This board member is outside of that coverage scope and does not receive scheduled updates.
William Campbell is the District A representative on the Alexandria City School Board in Virginia. Campbell sought another term in the general election on November 3, 2015.[1] William Campbell won the general election on November 3, 2015.
Elections
2015
Opposition
The Alexandria City School Board is a nine-member board elected by district to three-year terms. There are three districts on the board with three board members per district.[2] The general election was held on November 3, 2015.[3] The seats of all nine incumbents were up for election.[4]
Incumbents William Campbell and Karen Graf and challenger Harold Cardwell ran unopposed and won the three District A seats. District B incumbent Kelly Booz lost her seat after facing challengers Cindy Anderson, Mimi Goff, Margaret Lorber and Veronica Nolan. Anderson, Lorber and Nolan won the three District B seats. The District C race for three seats featured incumbents Ronnie Campbell, Patricia Hennig and Christopher Lewis and challengers Darla Dillard and Ramee Gentry. While Campbell and Lewis won re-election, Henning lost her seat to Gentry.
Results
| Alexandria City School Board, District A, General Election, 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Karen Graf Incumbent |
36.2% | 7,131 |
| William Campbell Incumbent |
32.4% | 6,371 |
| Harold Cardwell |
29.3% | 5,770 |
| Write-in votes | 2.12% | 418 |
| Total Votes | 19,690 | |
| Source: Virginia Department of Elections, "2015 November General", accessed November 3, 2015 | ||
Funding
Campbell reported $675.31 in contributions and $185.00 in expenditures to the Virginia State Board of Elections, which left his campaign with $490.31 on hand as of October 28, 2015.[5]
Endorsements
Campbell earned the endorsement of the Alexandria Political Action Committee for Education.[6]
Campaign themes
2015
Campbell answered the following questions from The Connection about issues in the district:
| “ |
What is one issue that defines your call to serve, why does it matter, and how will you tackle it? Alexandria has a “preparation” gap. This gap affects students before they enroll and when they leave our system. Too many students enter ACPS ill prepared sometimes emotionally and intellectually. This lack of readiness leads to achievement gaps, disproportionate suspensions and continuous intervention requirements. ACPS has historically struggled with necessary interventions and has continued to send students into the world unprepared to be self-supporting and positively contributing adults. Improving the outcomes for our Children with Disabilities, English Language Learners and Free and Reduced Lunch students is what calls me to serve. A multitude of improvements is required: enhanced professional development and support for teachers including quality cultural competency training leading to improved communications, higher expectations and higher efficacy; well designed and aligned interventions; and improved support from parents and our community. What distinguishes you from your opponent(s) and why should voters choose you? I started school in the ‘60s, grew up in the ‘70s, became a college graduate in the ‘80s, a father in the ‘90s and a legal guardian in the 2000’s. Having been a fatherless, poor student of color with a speech impediment, I can truly empathize with the struggles that many of our families and students are faced with. Having now served a term on the board, I know the true challenges facing our schools. Significant foundational elements have been put in place that have begun to move our district toward being high achieving. I want to continue our work toward that goal. How can Alexandria address overcrowding within the current budgetary confines? What ideas and skills do you bring to solving this? The board’s interactions with Council and the work of the joint city/schools Long Range Planning Committee has led to improved trust and agreement as to Alexandria’s capacity challenges. In the next 10 years we will need new schools at all three levels. We also need to modernize many of the spaces in our existing buildings. These realities force us to be creative with solutions. We need to look at things such as: moving PreK to independent centers; reprogramming schools perhaps to K-6 and 7-8 or 7-9 for middle school; additional academies for high school off of the main campus and/or a second high school. While the majority of Alexandria schools remain accredited, what can be done about continuing problems facing Jefferson-Houston? For incumbents, what lessons have been learned from the problem? For non-incumbent candidates, what would you have done differently? I’ve been actively involved at JH for the past decade. This school board and Superintendent have clearly identified the primary deficiencies at JH and are addressing each with a systematic and proven approach. We’ve provided quality leadership; continuous training and support to teachers; using data to pinpoint interventions; provided outstanding learning spaces; and we have worked to garner more support from the existing as well as the gentrifying community. These efforts have led to positive achievement gains which have, in one year, moved JH two years forward in their three-year plan to become fully accredited. Our kindergarten capture rate has increased, enrolled is climbing and community support is on the rise. [7] |
” |
| —William Campbell (2015), [8] | ||
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'William Campbell' 'Alexandria City Public Schools'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Alexandria City Public Schools, Virginia
- Alexandria City Public Schools elections (2015)
- Incumbency no guarantee of success in Nov. 3 school board elections (November 6, 2015)
- What happened in Nov.'s top board elections? (November 4, 2015)
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Virginia Department of Elections, "List of Candidates," September 9, 2015
- ↑ Alexandria City Public Schools, "School Board," accessed September 17, 2015
- ↑ Virginia Department of Elections, "2015 November Election Calendar," accessed January 27, 2015
- ↑ Alexandria City Public Schools, "School Board Members," accessed January 27, 2015
- ↑ Virginia State Board of Elections, "Campaign Finance Reports," accessed October 27, 2015
- ↑ AlexandriaNews.org, "Alexandria Educators Endorse Candidates," July 13, 2015
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The Connection, "School Board–Alexandria District A: William E. “Bill” Campbell," October 26, 2015
