News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Clay County School Board discussed the need for a new policy Thursday to help the school system better communicate with parents and staff about school threats.
Two citizens voiced frustrations with the board after a delayed notice of an alleged threat of violence that was made toward Hermitage Springs School after-hours on Tuesday, September 10th. Citizen Sarah Hatcher said faculty and staff were not made aware of the threat until the following day around 8:00am and the school did not release a public statement until 11:00am.
Board Chair Benji Bailey said he hopes the school system can learn from the incident and respond better in the future.
“From my standpoint, as we look at it each and every situation will be different,” Bailey said. “But if we can draft or consider a policy that will be able to address any of these issues that will be our goal.”
Board Member James Mays said he received a lot of phone calls from angry parents when the incident happened. Mays said moving forward the school system needs to provide more information in a timely fashion to parents.
“If we don’t let them know that’s when all the crazy conspiracies come out and it will run amok,” Mays said. “I mean I heard everything from there was a shooting to they threatened to blow the school up. I mean it was all over the board because people’s imaginations ran wild.”
Mays then suggested putting together a committee to develop a policy and protocol for school threat situations. Board Member Mark Ashlock said everything about the process was great except notifying the parents.
“I put myself in that position because that’s all I can do,” Ashlock said. “If I have a child and I haven’t heard anything but I have heard somebody blew the school up or shot two people I have heard that. I would be like that didn’t happen or we would have heard that, I knew I didn’t take that for much, but I think I would have wanted to know.”
Board Member Vonda Weir said as a mother of four if she had known about the situation ahead of time she would not have sent her child to school. Clay County Schools Director Diana Monroe said the school system will reach out to other county school directors about a potential policy.
“We will start in the morning because I know the board would ask me to do that,” Monroe said. “We will start in the morning to see if the TSBA does have a policy about public notifications.”
In other business, the school board re-elected Benji Bailey as Chairman and Nathan Sherrell as Vice-Chairman.
The board approved the purchase of a 78-passenger bus through a piggyback bid with Overton County Schools and the lowest quote for Chrome Books, Chrome Boxes, and desktop computers.
