Pocahontas County BOE Creates two School Resource Officers Positions

At the January 24^th Pocahontas County BOE Meeting, which was held at the Green Bank Elementary/Middle School, Superintendent Beam discussed the possible creation of up to two School Resource Officer positions to ensure safety at the schools.

Beam said there remains a number of questions about the authorities to be granted to those positions, including whether the retired law enforcement officers who would be hired should be armed or not at the schools as well as the types of actions to be taken by them in various behavior or security situations. He will not be able to actually create a job posting until the exact duties and authorities of those positions are determined. Beam said he has heard from several retired officers who expressed possible interest in these positions, and if the decision is made by the board to pursue creating the jobs, one would be posted mainly at PCHS, while the other position could roam the other 4 schools, but mostly be at the middle schools.

The board members did vote to approve the creation of these positions during the personnel Agenda, and Beam told them he will forward the details of those positions to the members for their comments, as soon as he decides on what duties should be included in the job postings.

During the Delegations portion of the meeting, Melia Thompson, the parent of a student at the Green Bank Elementary/Middle School said that the school needs two full-time principals, since it is both an elementary and a middle school, as well as a full-time instructional coach, and that it upsets her when she hears that the school hopes to improve its test scores in 3 to 5 years, since has a child at the school today,

During her report, Hailey Spencer, the student representative to the board, talked about “project Christmas” at PCHS

“We sent boxes to military students and to every military member from Pocahontas County,” said Spencer. “So, if they live here or if they came to school here or anything related to Pocahontas County, we sent them boxes. And we had our students send them letters and personalize their boxes, and they responded back to our students. We sent 78 boxes to these members, and we had a great success. And many community members and businesses donated a lot of supplies and money for this project.”

During his report, Superintendent Beam addressed issues that came up during the board’s meeting with service personnel which included:  Developing an orientation plan for service employees; Aides being given copies of their student’s IAPs; substitute service personnel not putting in a full day; that Aides can only recommend the discipline of students to a teacher but are authorized to supervise a class when no teacher is present; and that a policy is being considered requiring cash payments from employees who pay habitually pay their food bills with bad checks.

He also said that If substitutes don’t meet the minimum working requirements, they will be dropped from the list and If they haven’t worked at all, they might not be rehired.

Beam said he will need an executive session at a future board meeting to discuss the effect of the expiration of COVID money on their personnel decisions.

Beam said he met with Jay Miller and came to an understanding about his sharing his math tutoring strategies with elementary teachers and students.

Beam recognized all 55 student winners who placed first, second or third at the County Science Fair. You can see the names of all those winners listed at the end of this story on our website: www.alleghenymountainradio.org.

Sherry Radcliff reported that they hope to complete installation of HVAC systems at both middle schools in fall of 2023.

Ruth Bland talked about the Pre-School admissions policy, saying all four-year-olds will be admitted, but school assignments will be on a first-come, first -served basis.

Additionally, the board approved routine financial matters; the recommended personnel actions; a new fundraising event for the Green Bank School; and new community volunteers for the schools.