Overton School Board Retains District 1 For Chairmanship

Overton County School Board has gone against board precedent and voted to retain its current District 1 School Board Chair and Vice Chair.

Chair Mike Hayes said the position typically rotates to a new district each year. He said the board felt like with so much going on, continuity of leadership was important.

“Since we’ve got the football building program going on and we’ve got a school building project we’re trying to work on and a lot of things going on, some of the school board members just wanted to leave the chairman the same,” Hayes said. “So instead of changing our policy, we just went through and asked each district if they wanted to pass on the new chairmanship this year. That way, it will rotate back to District 1. That way it will maintain everything we’ve kind of worked for.”

Since District 1 retained the chairmanship this year, Hayes said it will rotate back to District 2 next school year. Newly-elected District 1 Board Member Shirley Myers will serve as the Vice Chair.

Hayes said he oversees the Building Committee as well, so he’ll be able to make sure the football project and potential building project continue as planned. He said a lot of the projects utilize ESSER funds, but that the school is also gathering school needs data for a needed building project.

“Once we get all that data back of school needs, safety focus, then we’ll get with our architects, get a dollar amount, then we’ll have to go to the County Commission whether it’s looking at a bond or something to do a building program,” Hayes said. “The last time we did a building program was in 2001, so we’re about 21 years past the point of doing anything to our schools. So we’re kind of looking to upgrade some things.”

Hayes said they are currently looking at safety upgrades and upgrades to address growth at schools in the Rickman and Hilham areas.