Highland School Board plans school heating upgrades

Monterey, Va. – The Highland County School Board is looking to upgrade the heating system controls and make other improvements at the school building. Superintendent Dr. Will Crawford discusses what is currently under review.

“I met with several local and other heating and air control companies from across the mountains,” said Dr. Crawford. “As we begin the process of looking at what a control panel, to properly regular our heat, might cost us. I also talked with vendors about a generator for Highland County Schools. When I talked with Mr. Lightner about that I have also talked with Roberta (Highland County Administrator, Roberta Lambert) and I said we ought to talk with the Sheriff and other emergency management committees to see if we want to do this by ourselves, which I don’t think we want to do. I want to see what role the have to play,” he said.

Dr. Crawford continues with more details on this process of determining what will be needed to improve control of the heating system.

“The most important thing is the control system for our heating units,” said Dr. Crawford. “Right now if you go in the office and look behind the door you will see an old timey wheel clock with pins and stuff on it that doesn’t work that is supposed to turn our heat off and on at the appropriate times and is not doing it. We don’t have thermostats kicking it off like it should. We do have folks coming in to give us an estimate on what it would take to put an electric trigger on those to kick them off and on at the appropriate times based on the temperature in different parts of the building. So Mr. Lightner is going to be giving us an estimate, Riddleburgers, they are also going to be giving us an estimate. So we will have two estimates for the heating and cooling unit. My intentions are when we get those estimates is to talk to Roberta, to talk to the emergency management committee, and of course, to talk to the Board. We won’t do anything with that estimate, we will just hold it until the groups decide what we’re going to do in terms of hooking up this building and the kitchen and what parts they would want on the generator,” he said.

Previous discussion with the Sheriff focused on the possible use of the school building as a county disaster relief shelter. If that is approved, the building will need its own generator. In other business, Dr. Crawford talks about the new Virginia Teacher Evaluation program.

“Our principals and teachers have been working on goal setting to prepare our goals that are going to be used as part of the new Virginia Teacher Evaluation Systems,” said Dr. Crawford. “These meetings are going well. We’ve taken a very low key, cooperative approach to these meetings. The principals and I are also focused specifically and intentionally on students who are not performing to our expectations. We are giving extra support and assistance to these students and it is being documented. What I’ve asked for specifically from both principals, if you have students that are not doing well to please give me their names and I’ll be looking at the plan for helping that student,” he said.

Finally, Dr. Crawford gave the Board an update on the Continuous Improvement Committee’s recent activities.

“Sandy delayed our Continuous Improvement meetings, but we have our next meeting Wednesday, which is two days away, Wednesday afternoon,” said Dr. Crawford. “Board members, of course, are welcome to attend that. I’m excited about the direction these meetings are taking and looking forward to having a draft plan hopefully completed by April of this year. I also met with the Highland Education Association on November 13, to hear their thoughts and concerns about the system. I will meet with the HCEA representatives on the second Tuesday of the month, and that’s a standing meeting. So we’ll do that every month,” he said.

The next meeting of the Highland County School Board will be Monday, January 14, at 7 PM in the High School library.