BELINGTON — Students returned to classes at Belington Elementary on Wednesday morning, one day after the school was closed for what school system officials are calling “staffing issues.”

Barbour County Superintendent Eddie Vincent said Wednesday that there was an issue that forced school to be canceled at Belington Elementary on Tuesday.

“We have an issue at the school that has been brought to our attention and we are dealing with it,” Vincent told the Inter-Mountain. “I really can’t say anything more on the issue at this time other than we had to close the school yesterday because we didn’t have enough subs to be able to do it. Even if I would have put my directors there to cover classes, we still didn’t have enough people.”

Vincent said that everything at the school was back to normal Wednesday and that the issue was being investigated.

“It’s an ongoing investigation and I really can’t say much about it other than we are looking into a situation and hopefully it’s resolved soon and we are back to normal,” Vincent said.

Many Barbour County parents have taken to social media to comment on Tuesday’s school closing. Several posted on Facebook that there had been an incident at the school in which an unruly student was restrained by teachers. One parent claimed on Facebook that four teachers had been “suspended without pay” after the incident, and that other teachers were now protesting that decision.

Vincent also told The Inter-Mountain that the Barbour County Schools system is having problems filling positions for substitute bus drivers. Vincent added that the busing issue has nothing to do with the school closing on Tuesday, but said two buses in the county were unable to run Tuesday because there weren’t enough drivers.

“We hired a couple new bus drivers, but we don’t seem to gain anything,” Vincent said. “We didn’t have subs, and then we got a couple subs who later moved into full-time positions. So then we didn’t have any subs again – it’s an ongoing problem. We are trying to train and recruit people to drive. I think counties all over the state are having this problem as well.”

Vincent admitted that Barbour County Schools is not just in need of bus drivers.

“We are looking for all service personnel in the county and some certified teachers,” Vincent said. “We have had to move some people around here, during the RIF (reduction in force) nobody really lost their jobs, they had to move. We have some closure and consolidation projects coming up, so we are looking at a lot of changes for Barbour County in the future.”