The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley Harman School teacher Tammie Swecker addresses the Randolph County Board of Education during Tuesday evening's meeting. A total of 27 speakers urged the BOE members to rescind an October vote to close the K-12 Harman School.

ELKINS – A Randolph County Board of Education member made a motion at Tuesday evening’s BOE meeting to rescind the Oct. 8 vote to close the Harman K-12 School, but the motion died for lack of a second.

After 27 community members spoke during Tuesday night’s meeting urging the board members to rescind the Harman vote, BOE member Ed Daniels made a motion to bring the Harman School situation up for discussion. After several minutes of silence, BOE member Janie Newlon seconded the motion.

Daniels then directed a question to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Shawn Dilly, asking, “So under the title discussion and possible action, does that mean at this time we can make a motion to rescind the vote.”

Dilly responded, “Yes, you would have that legal right to do.”

Daniels said, “I would like to make a motion to rescind the vote.”

BOE President Rachel Burns then asked if there was a second. After several moments of silence, murmuring began to be heard among the large contingency of Harman supporters at the meeting, which lead to Burns saying, “I understand that this is a heated topic, but we need to understand that this is a meeting for the public, but the public may not interact with us at this point.”

Burns then asked again if there was a second to Daniels’ motion. After several more moments of silence from the BOE, Burns said, “With no second that dies.”

Some of the Harman School supporters began loudly yelling and booing at the school officials when it became clear that the motion had died. Moments later, the supporters began to walk out of the meeting.

One female Harman supporter yelled to the Board members, “Your kids don’t have to go across those mountains, do they?” Another one said, “My kids ain’t going to Elkins, there’s no way.”

Several other Harman supporters were heard thanking Daniels as the room went from full capacity, with other people standing outside in the hallway listening, to only 12 attendees left after a five-minute recess.

Earlier during the meeting’s public comment section, 27 community members spoke in an attempt to convince the board members to rescind the Harman vote.

Randolph County Schools was placed in a State of Emergency by the West Virginia Department of Education in June.

In early October, in response to being placed in the State of Emergency, the Randolph BOE voted 4-1 to close the Harman K-12 School, and 5-0 to close North Elementary.

A week later, a public hearing and vote on the closure of the Pickens K-12 School was canceled approximately 90 minutes before it was scheduled to take place.

On Oct. 28, the board voted 3-2 against the closing of Midland Elementary and 4-1 against the closing of Coalton Elementary.