WELLSBURG — William Michael Traubert has declared his candidacy for a seat on the Brooke County Board of Education in the May 14 primary election.

Traubert is retired, having worked in the banking field for 46 years. He is a graduate of West Virginia Northern Community College and Wheeling Jesuit University and is working toward a master’s degree in education at West Liberty University.

He has served on the board for the Hancock-Brooke-Ohio Victims Assistance Program for more than 30 years, many of them as its president.

Traubert has been affiliated with USA Boxing for more than 50 years, serving as a Junior Olympic regional coach, and has been a licensed inspector for championship fights overseen by the West Virginia State Athletic Commission.

Traubert said he was disappointed that Brooke County students’ state test reading scores dropped slightly in 2021.

“I know that highly qualified educators have been at work to correct that dip,” he said, while adding if elected, he would push for reading scores higher than the state average by stressing vocabulary building, critical thinking and use of context clues.

“We need to strengthen our compassion skills and empathy when working with students who struggle,” he said, that particularly includes those with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Traubert said he’d recommend engaging them in sports and other activities that require both the left and right hemispheres of their brains to work together, a behavioral pattern some call “crossing the midline.”

He said crossing the midline can be difficult for such children and similar activities also can be used to evaluate them for additional instruction at an early age.