ELKINS – Superintendent Dr. Shawn Dilly told the Randolph County Board of Education at Tuesday night’s meeting that several organizations have approached him about wanting to acquire the Harman K-12 School property when the school closes.

The school is in its final semester, after the BOE voted to close it last October. The state BOE then made it official by approving the county’s decision in December.

The district has control of the school property and Dilly has made it clear to the BOE at previous meetings that the property disposition states the facility must be used for educational purposes.

“At this point I’ve actually been approached by three separate non-profit organizations interested in the Harman facility,” Dilly said. “So I talked to some colleagues and asked them what we do in that situation. Because there is merit to everybody’s approach and what they want to try and do with the Harman facility.”

Dilly told the Board a colleague he spoke with told him he had a similar situation in his county, and that his county’s BOE put together a request for proposals, and then made the decision based on the applications.

“I have drafted a sort of a submission document for your consideration, and there were a couple pieces of this document that I thought were important to mention this evening,” Dilly said. “It requires explanations for the different organizations, some financials and different things…

“Developing this there were some questions around, you know, if they don’t do what they said they were going to do in the first three years. Do we take the property back?… We don’t necessarily have to do anything this evening, but I just wanted to share with you this idea that a colleague had and I sort of ran with it.”

Dilly told the BOE that all three of the organizations who have approached him about the facility are worthy of taking over the property.

“How do you choose between three very good decisions, you know, for the community, for the aspect of that?” Dilly asked. “So I felt like the fairest way to do that is to let them put together a proposal and then this Board could make a decision based on what we felt was in the best interest of that community. And I just thought that was a really clever way of trying to do a fair process and making a determination with competing interest for the facility itself.”

BOE member Sherri Collett asked Dilly, “This is in regards because there are restrictions on the deed for Harman School?”

Dilly replied, “There are no restrictions. There is something in the covenant where it is recommended to use for educational purposes… All three of them that I have spoken to thus far have some educational elements associated with what they’re trying to do.”

Dilly did not disclose any further information about the three organizations interested in the property. The Inter-Mountain, however, learned this week that the Harman Education Association is looking to obtain the school and is hoping to establish a microschool at that location.

The Harman Education Association is hosting a meeting at the Harman Covenant Brethren Church on Friday at 6 p.m. to go over its plans. That meeting will feature representatives from the HOPE Scholarship and WVHES (West Virginia Home Educators Association).

The next Randolph County Board of Education regular meeting will be April 7 at 5:30 p.m.