Harlan County High School (File Photo)

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The Harlan County Board of Education met in a special session on June, 3, to discuss issues including roof projects at multiple facilities and a mentorship program for new teachers.

Chairman Gary Farmer called the meeting to order before asking Superintendent Brent Roark to bring the board up to speed on roofing projects at Cumberland and Evarts Elementary Schools.

“We put out for bid the installation of roof sections at Cumberland and Evarts,” Roark told the board. “Those bids came back far better than expected. The low estimate on Cumberland was $1.16 million, it actually came back in at $939,000.”

Roark said the estimate for Evarts was also lower than expected.

“Evarts’ low estimate was $645,000, it came in at $597,000, so it’s $48,000 under the low estimate,” Roark said. “We were real pleased with the bids on the installation.”

Roark noted the meeting was primarily about the roofing project. He mentioned he had set some guidelines for the project.

“It can’t impact the start of school, and it can’t impact the safety of our kids at school while they’re doing this,” Roark said. “He assured me that it won’t.”

A board member made a motion to accept the bids for $939,000 for the roofing project at Cumberland and $597,000 for the roofing project at Evarts. The motion passed with no opposition.

The board also discussed a new teacher mentorship program.

“We’ve been doing a much, much better job with our special education,” Roark said. “We’ve also been doing much better with our overall mentorship programs.”

Roark explained that overall mentorship involves all new teachers rather than being limited to special education teachers.

“We’ve been using a grant,” Roark said. “It was called Deeper Learning, it was paying for mentors for these new teachers…this was something I was really loving, it was good for us, it was helping our district, the cost on it is not huge…but the Deeper Learning initiative went away. The grant expired.”

Roark told the board he strongly recommends keeping the mentorship program in place.

“We’re going to have to pick up the bill,” Roark said. “I’m going to ask the board if you would consider the proposal I put forth to continue our mentorship program and pay for it out of general fund money.”

Roark noted every new teacher would be required to go through the mentoring program.

Board member Hiram Fields made a motion to fund the mentoring program, seconded by board member Scott Sherman. The motion passed unanimously.

In other board activity:

• The board approved a use of facilities agreement with Harlan Little League;
• A first reading of the KSHA Annual Policy Update was performed;
• The board approved a trip for the Harlan County JROTC to Camp Pendleton.