The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley The Randolph County Board of Education approved a waiver this week regarding how long students will be on school buses after the Harman K-12 School and North Elementary School close.

ELKINS — The closing of two Randolph County schools weren’t the only items approved by the Board of Education this week.

In addition to approving the closures of both Harman K-12 and North Elementary, Randolph County BOE members also voted to approve Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly’s request of a waiver, and amendments to the district’s Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan.

The school system’s Transportation Director Nick Alfred told The Inter-Mountain on Friday that the waiver has to do with how long students will stay on the bus when traveling from Harman to Elkins, and from the Montrose area to Jennings Randolph, instead of North School.

“The waiver is for the elementary times,” Alfred said. “It’s waiver policy 4436, regarding travel times for elementary students. The state code recommends 30 minutes, and the waiver can get you to 60 minutes.”

Several community members spoke out about the waiver during the hearing, including Lacey Mullenax, whose 5-year-old and 9-year-old children attend school in Harman.

Mullenax said the increased time for students on a school bus traveling from Harman to Elkins will be substantially greater than what is listed in the superintendent’s Impact Statement, and is why a waiver request was needed.

“Some of our students will be getting on the bus as early as 5:47 a.m., and will have a bus route as long as one hour and 23 minutes one way,” Dilly said. “All of our buses will be required to have a waiver because they will be over the allotted time for elementary, middle and high school students per West Virginia code 182e.”

After each public comment section of Tuesday’s meeting, Dilly and his team took time to answer any questions or address comments. Randolph County Schools attorney Jason Long commented on the waiver request.

“The waiver request is voted on by the board, but that goes to the state board along with the approval for the closures,” Long said. “There is nothing saying that the state will automatically rubber stamp a waiver request. We can’t speculate as to what those state board members may do.”

BOE President Rachel Burns then asked Long what would happen if the waiver request wasn’t approved.

“If there’s no waiver approval, for example as it relates to Harman, then I would assume there’d be no closure of Harman,” Long said. “Because absent the waiver, you have the transportation issue.”

Board member Sherri Collett said, “This has happened in the past, I think in 2014 when it was proposed to close Pickens and the state board did not choose to do that. So it has happened.”

The approval of amendments to the district’s Comprehensive Educational Facilities Plan allows the district to make changes to its 10-year plan. It allows the district to update the plan at any time to reflect what is actually happening versus what was originally in the plan.

A public hearing for the closing of Pickens K-12 School will be Tuesday, Oct. 14 at 5:30 p.m. in the EHS theatre. Those wishing to speak must sign up between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. A final vote on the closings will be made by the BOE at 7:30 p.m.

A third and final public hearing, for the closure of Coalton Elementary and Midland Elementary, will be Oct. 28 at the EHS theatre beginning at 5:30 p.m. A final vote will be made by the BOE at 8:30 p.m.