Cox elected new chairman of school board

PC SChools roundBy MIKE WILLIAMS

The Patriot

The Pulaski County School Board has a new chairman.

At Tuesday’s January meeting of the board, Massie District representative Becki Cox was unanimously elected as the new chairman.

Her term will be for one year.

Cox’s name was placed in nomination by Dr. Paige Cash, who had served the past year as chairman.

Also Tuesday, Timmy Hurst was re-elected for another one-year term as vice chairman.

Other appointments by the board included Teresa Porter as Clerk, Brenda Crawford as Deputy Clerk and Assistant School Superintendent Chris Stafford as Parliamentarian.

Cox was again appointed as the school board’s representative on the Southwest Virginia Governor’s School Board.

Cash asked Cox if she would be interested in continuing to serve on the governor’s school board.

“I can do it, given the current transition that is going on there,” Cox replied.

“I think it might be better since you have been in the transition for you to see it through to the end probably,” Cash responded.

Back in November it was learned that the Southwest Virginia Governor’s School will be leaving the former Northwood Elementary building at the end of the school year.

Pulaski County has maintained the building and provided fiscal management services for the governor’s school free of charge since the school’s inception in 1989.

School Superintendent Dr. Kevin Siers stated in November that several years ago, local school officials had approached the governor’s school leadership requesting assistance from the other member school divisions with replacing a roof on the Northwood building. He said only one school division was willing to contribute.

“Since there was not a resolution to this issue, we decided to no longer provide a free facility for their use and have requested that another school division assume the responsibility of fiscal management for the program,” Siers explained.

Siers noted, however, that Pulaski County Public Schools would continue to be a part of the governor’s school program, wherever it settled next school year, even though participation by Pulaski County students has dwindled to only nine participants this school year.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the School Board appointed several individuals to serve on a School Security Committee.

Those members include: School Board Chairman Becki Cox; School Board Vice Chairman Timmy Hurst; Superintendent Dr. Kevin Siers; Assistant Superintendent Chris Stafford; Jess Shull, Director of Operations; Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office Captain Todd Saunders; Massie District Supervisor Mike Mooney; Jenny Anderson, Teacher; Anthony Viers, Critzer Elementary School Principal, and Bryan Ward, Pulaski County High School Assistant Principal.

“This is a new committee. We know that we received some additional facilities money from the state, and we want to try to use that money to address some of the remaining capital projects that pertain to school security. So, our hope is to bring this committee in and talk about some of the options that we have and review some of the tentative plans that have been put together,” said Siers.

He said the committee and the school board can set priorities and discuss how best to use the limited funds to best meet the security needs of the  school system.