CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The president of the 1.5 million-member American Federation of Teachers, told state Board of Education members Wednesday that true community schools blend a wealth of good services for students and parents with high-quality teaching.

Randi Weingarten also told an audience at the board meeting that "fair, meaningful and good" teacher evaluations are more complex than a snapshot in time, and should not be used as a "gotcha" tool to grade teachers.

Weingarten made her fourth trip to West Virginia, where she also stopped in to visit two classrooms at Stonewall Jackson Middle School. The school on Charleston's West Side is a candidate to become the state's pilot community development school.

In July, state lawmakers agreed to let colleges and universities, community organizers and state school board members develop and introduce undefined "strategies" at a school with a high number of disadvantaged, minority and underachieving students.

Community schools in cities like Cincinnati, Newark and Syracuse offer "wrap-around" services like mentoring and tutoring, free health centers, legal clinics, mental health and daycare facilities that are tailored to the needs of parents and the community, Weingarten said.

"These are the kinds of services that in isolation are not going to help kids," Weingarten said. Combining them under one roof with high-quality teaching, however, can make a difference, she said.

Earlier this year, former Stonewall Jackson principal George Aulenbacher was one of five Kanawha County principals who agreed to step down so his school could receive up to $2 million in federal School Improvement Grant money.

Aulenbacher is a Milken Award winner, which people often refer to as the Oscar for teaching. Weingarten said she has noticed similar cases of good school leaders stepping aside so their schools can receive federal money.

"There have been unintended consequences of the get-tough policy," she said in an interview later Wednesday. "We have said that this ... is not a model that we condone."

Still, she realizes it's hard to turn down so much money in today's weak economy.

Weingarten talked to the state board about teacher evaluations, and encouraged its members to help her union produce fair and meaningful evaluations.

The evaluations of old were once- or twice-yearly "drive-by" efforts where principals would sit in a classroom for a few minutes and often give a teacher a satisfactory evaluation.

On the other end of the pendulum, students' standardized test results in other states will be a major factor in teacher evaluations.

"Neither snapshot is right," Weingarten said.

State Superintendent of Schools Steve Paine wants a full year to develop new teacher evaluations in West Virginia, but said looming deadlines might hasten the process.

Paine and others will have help from Linda Darling-Hammond, an education researcher at Stanford University who led President Obama's education policy transition team in late 2008 and 2009.

Also Wednesday, Paine said the state is receiving millions of dollars to develop, along with 30 other states, a common system to test what students are learning. West Virginia is a founding member of the group, called the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium.

Standardized tests in West Virginia, like the WESTEST 2, don't look like standardized tests in other states. Earlier this year, West Virginia and most other states adopted the "Common Core State Standards" to create a consistent set of learning standards for students in English and mathematics.

Reach Davin White at davinwh...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1254.