WHEELING – Teacher Joe Jividen is making his first run for political office and he sees it as an opportunity to encourage learning and community involvement among the youth.

Jividen, a teacher at Wheeling Country Day School, is the only Democrat to file in the race for the District 4 seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates in the May 12 primary election. He will face in the Nov. 3 general election the winner of the race on the GOP ticket between Derek Ennis and Dolph Santorine.

“I think that political campaigns often focus on the gloom and doom, but I see a lot of opportunity – especially for the Northern Panhandle,” Jividen said. “I think we can make this a place where people will stay here not just because they are from here and live here. I think we can make it a place where people will choose to live. There’s a difference.

“I really hope to run a campaign not just that my family will be proud of but that my students will be too. I am going to walk back into that classroom whether I win or lose, so I hope my students will be proud of me as well.”

He believes pride and interest in the community begins with the children. As the “Learning on Location” coordinator at WCDS, his role is to take students into the community to show them what opportunities exist or to bring speakers and opportunities to them.

“If we want people to believe in this community, we have to invite them to be part of this community earlier,” Jividen said. “So I really would like to take that work I am doing and offer it to a wider audience.”

Jividen is a Wheeling native who attended Steenrod Elementary before attending middle school and high school at The Linsly School.

He attended Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where he played football. He went on to obtain a master’s in education from West Liberty University.

Jividen admitted he never saw himself seeking office.

“I’ve always been interested and involved in the process as much as possible but it was not something that was necessarily on my radar,” he continued. “I see this as an opportunity to invest in a place that I call home. The time is right for me to do that.

“There are several issues that have become relevant to which I want to lend my voice.”

Jividen said as a teacher he is certainly attuned to education matters.

“Education often becomes a catch-all – everything from food security to jobs and careers to higher education,” he explained. “As a teacher who has spent a decade and a half in the classroom, I feel I have a unique understanding of education.

“Instead of just talking about job creation, I would like to see more opportunities for careers. There is a distinct difference between offering somebody a job and offering them a career. A career is stable and something you can use to put down roots.”

Jividen and his wife Ashley have two young children and childcare is also an important issue to him. He sits on the board at Holy Family Childcare.

“For years, we’ve talked about childcare like an issue that families have to deal with, but I think we’re seeing it now as more of an economic issue,” he explained. “We talk about building a workforce and job infrastructure, but without stable and affordable childcare we can’t get to the second step of workforce development.”

Jividen noted he was happy to see the Legislature take action this year to pass legislation pertaining to childcare.

“I see both sides of it,” he continued. “My child is in a childcare center and nobody likes writing that check every week. But I also see the finances on the other end and realize that no childcare center is getting wealthy and the people taking care of our most precious part of the family aren’t getting wealthy either.

“Something has to be done to stabilize childcare, both for families and for childcare centers,” Jividen added.