Tuesday’s Randolph County Board of Education meeting presented a classic “good news and bad news” situation.

The good news, for residents of the Harman and Pickens areas, is that Superintendent of Schools Dr. Shawn Dilly and the BOE announced that the scheduled public hearings and votes on closing the Harman and Pickens schools have been moved back from November into January.

Dilly said this decision was made after facing public criticism over the officials moving so quickly on the proposed school closings.

A total of seven hearings were scheduled to take place in November at various Randolph County schools, allowing residents to weigh in on the proposed closings. Dilly said he would announce the new hearings and voting dates for January in the near future.

Then during Tuesday’s meeting, there came what many in the county have perceived as bad news: Dilly unveiled a Reorganization Plan for the county’s school system which includes closing five elementary schools and creating two consolidated elementary schools.

Tuesday’s meeting took place exactly two weeks after Dilly first announced publicly that the BOE is considering closing the Harman and Pickens schools, and that a schedule had been put in place to vote on those proposed closings.

Just 14 days later, Dilly announces the BOE is looking at closing five more schools.

Whew! Slow down, Dr. Dilly, let people catch their breath!

The Randolph superintendent is moving so quickly he could give onlookers whiplash.

Dilly’s expanded plan has been the talk of the town this week, both in person and on social media.

“I don’t agree to this … This is ridiculous,” reads a social media post from a mother of students at Coalton Elementary School, one of the five new schools proposed for closure this week.

Dilly has said multiple times that declining student enrollment and shrinking revenues are forcing him and the BOE to move quickly to downsize the school system’s operations, in order to avoid having the state come in and seize control of the system.

This is understandable, but Dilly and the BOE must remember that these are real people, including real children, and not just numbers on a spreadsheet.

Parents in Harman and Pickens have real concerns about their kids having to ride a school bus for hours every school day, over roads which can be extremely treacherous in the winter.

These concerns should be heard and taken seriously. The Inter-Mountain criticized the November hearings schedule in an editorial two weeks ago, noting that the BOE members would be asked to hear public comment, in three separate public hearings, and then vote whether to close a school on the same night, all within a 90-minute span.

That did not sound like officials taking residents’ concerns seriously. That sounded more like officials trying to push a plan through.

We applaud Dilly and the BOE moving the hearings back to January. That is a good, important step, to allow Harman and Pickens residents to publicly make their case to keep the schools open.

We ask that Dilly and the BOE continue to show more consideration, and compassion, for the real people who will be most affected by this massive reorganization plan.