MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Phyllis Albritton has lived in Blacksburg for 35 years. She was appointed to the District A seat on the Montgomery County School Board last September after Amy Lythgoe resigned last July.

BLACKSBURG -- The past year has taught Phyllis Albritton to respect the power of a learning curve, and now she said she's ready to dive deeper into Montgomery County's school system.

Albritton was appointed to the District A seat on the Montgomery County School Board last September after board member Amy Lythgoe resigned last July. On Nov. 4, voters in the district, which covers southern and southeastern Blacksburg and northeastern Montgomery County, will choose between Albritton and candidate Amy Mauldon in a special election to fill the remaining year of the term.

If elected, Albritton said she would support higher pay for school employees and find programs to get children to read on grade-level by the end of third grade.

Albritton has lived in Blacksburg for 35 years and she said she has a passion for helping children and serving the community. Albritton is a financial adviser, but she has been on the board of the Valley Interfaith Child Care Center in Blacksburg and also volunteers at Margaret Beeks Elementary School.

Children are a priority, she said. And getting children reading, she said, is key to success, as is teaching children early on.

"I don't want any child not becoming a teacher, a politician, a journalist or what they want to be because he or she is not reading," Albritton said. She said she worries because she has heard that prison-population projections are based on the number of children who can't read by the time they enter third grade.

Albritton said she's proud of the direction the school system is going and cites alternative education programs and pre-school preparation as two good areas. She said she wants the school system to be competitive in pay so the county can retain and recruit quality teachers. She said she was "appalled" to learn that employees are paid below neighboring regions.

Teachers "help every child grow to his or her potential using his or her gifts," she said.

"That doesn't mean we let them get away with things," she said, but rather the school system needs to teach them how to overcome barriers and prepare for multiple directions, such as college or the work force.

To that end, Albritton sees standardized exams as a positive force in a child's life.

"It's not the end all be all," she said, but children need to be supported and told they are doing well. "I think our children are doing great."

Albritton said she has spent years working with children at risk to fall through the cracks. It's part of why she worked to get funding for Blacksburg's Valley Interfaith Child Care Center.

She was on the center's board until last year, when she told executive director Katy St. Marie she wanted to devote more time to the school board.

"Children are first and foremost in her mind when she talks about social justice," St. Marie said.

But it isn't just about passion, St. Marie said.

"When she's advocating she pulls out all the stops," St. Marie said. "When she needs to do and ask for specific things, she will. She knows how to close."