Local News

Second Prevention Resource Officer to be added at B-UHS

BUCKHANNON - The Upshur County Board of Education and Upshur County Commission have both voted to move forward with adding a second prevention resource officer at Buckhannon-Upshur High School.

Following a vote by the BOE to add a second PRO, superintendent Dr. Sara Stankus and B-UHS principal Eddie Vincent spoke at Thursday's Upshur County Commission meeting.

Stankus began by thanking the community for passing the excess levy in 2019 and reminded the commission that one of the items in the excess levy is a third PRO.

The levy calls for three prevention resource officers -- currently one each at Buckhannon-Upshur High School, Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School and Buckhannon Academy Elementary School.

The excess levy will fund the salary and benefits of a third PRO for the full year. It also funds the salary and benefits of the already established PROs at Buckhannon-Upshur Middle School and B-UHS for the school year. The county covers two months during the summer.

Upshur County Schools would like to remove the PRO at BAES at the conclusion of this school year and use those funds to add a second PRO officer at B-UHS to help with an increased student population and additional challenges at the school, according to Stankus.

"Our high school is a reflection of the challenges we see in our community," she said. "We want to do what we told the community we would do in the levy. We want to maintain those three officers. We feel that our need is at the high school.

"This PRO officer serves in crisis mediation, crisis prevention and intervention and de-escalation at the high school," she said. "They do patrols around the school building, they help staff during those large-crowd events. We have over 1,000 students in this building. Of course, PRO officers will be part of educating our students. This is one of the things we believe is really a critical role of this person in our schools -- that we would focus on prevention.

"I know there is a lot of expense related to intervention or even as the commission knows, how much it costs to put someone in jail. We believe the money is better spent on the other end with the children before they get involved in these kind of criminal behaviors - drug use or the things we are seeing. We are seeing that in our schools but we believe this person could be very instrumental in making a difference with our youth. Of course, they will help us with intervention and serve as a liaison between law enforcement and the school system."

Principal Eddie Vincent said that most of his experience as a high school principal was having former PRO officer Rocky Hebb in the building. Hebb recently accepted a position with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources Law Enforcement division and Cpl. Dewaine Linger moved into the PRO role.

"[Hebb] did a great job of building relationships and rapport with students and probably changed how our students see law enforcement," Vincent said. "The image they have of a policeman is not the same after they have been around him for a while."

In Hebb's tenure at B-UHS, he became the "go-to guy" for 1,100 students, according to Vincent.

"They trusted him," Vincent said. "They approached him with things they wouldn't talk to a teacher or administrator about. That's a compliment to him. One of the things that concerned me about him was I feel like he got overwhelmed with volume."

Vincent said the student body is set to expand in the next school year to about 1,200 students.

"Our school is going to slightly increase in numbers," he said. "We are going to be above 1,100 kids next year. Rocky got overwhelmed with the volume and one of the things that monopolized his time was social media and cell phone issues. He spent a large portion of his day toward the end of his time in Upshur County dealing with that. I don't want to speak on his behalf but that certainly was part of his thought process in taking another position somewhere. That, the paperwork and the dealing with the cell phone issues is overwhelming."

Hebb also did classroom prevention and education activities, and handled school safety and security as well as traffic monitoring in the morning and afternoon, all of which Linger is also doing.

"The fact you have 100 to 200 drivers at the high school every day is a big concern of ours," he said.

"The PRO officer office is near the front of the building," he said. "We have some safety concerns we are working on at the front entrance to our building. My number one job is the safety of the building and that front entrance can be difficult to manager. That PRO officer is also assisting the front desk with any safety concerns."

Vincent said he believes that having the prevention resource officers is an investment.

"There's nothing worse to me than seeing one of our graduates on the front page of the newspaper for something that maybe we could have done - maybe, maybe not," Vincent said in reference to crime stories about B-UHS graduates.

"The biggest thing is the relationship they have with students," he said. "The problem was the volume of issues. I'm concerned if we don't provide [Cpl.] Linger with some assistance that we are going to have a similar deal with him that you are going to take something else because it gets to you."

Commissioner Sam Nolte said he felt a second PRO was needed.

"That's a lot of kids for one officer to handle," he said.

He also referenced the county's regional jail bill which was just $15,000 shy of $900,000 for the most recent year's figures available.

"I watch kids up there come in," Nolte said. "They are terrific kids; they are smart kids and I watch them take a different path, the wrong path. I really feel it would be a huge benefit for Upshur County."

Commission president Terry Cutright said a new contract would be needed and said the county would not be providing the second PRO with a vehicle.

Stankus replied, "That's outside of our scope as well."

Commissioner Kristie Tenney moved to have a new memorandum of understanding be drafted which was seconded by Nolte and passed.

Sheriff David Coffman said at this time he did not have any deputies interested in being a PRO. The department is also down in manpower. One deputy is in the beginning of the 16-week police academy to become certified and another new hire recently resigned.

But Coffman said he would wait to see what the board of education and the commission drafts in the MOU.