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The Harlan County Schools Board of Education held a special called meeting on Monday, July, 18, discussing a range of topics including school resource officers, a school police department and reducing the costs of school supplies for the district’s families.

Board Chairman Gary Farmer called the meeting to order.

Farmer kicked off the meeting advising the board members the first item of business was to name a school district police department and a temporary chief of police.

“It could be Harlan County Schools Police Department,” Farmer suggested. “At this time, we can name Jim T. Whitaker as temporary police chief.”

The board passed a motion approving both suggestions with no objections.

“Item number four is a request to allocate $25,000 to be divided among all schools to assist families with school supplies,” Farmer told the board. “We’re providing a lot of the basic items for school supplies.”

According to a statement on the Harlan County Public Schools Facebook page, the $25,000 is intended to assist the parents of the district’s students by lowering their school supplies costs during the current difficult economy.

The board approved allocating the funds for school supplies with no objections.

The panel also approved job descriptions for Law Enforcement Resource Officer Supervisor, Law Enforcement Resource Officer and the salary scale for those positions.

In other board activity:

*The board approved the second reading of the school attendance policy;

* The second reading of the Harlan County Schools district-initiated non-resident policy was approved;

* The board approved a motion to surplus old student desks and a climbing wall at Wallins Elementary School;

* The board approved an emergency certification for a culinary teacher for Harlan County High School;

* A memorandum of agreement with Southeast Kentucky and Community Technical College for dual credit classes at Harlan County High School was approved.