(Photo by Douglass Huxley) Jason Hughes, director of the Wood County Technical Center and the Caperton Center for Applied Technology, speaks to the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday about the continued growth and future visions for career technical education enrollment and programming in the district.

PARKERSBURG — The Wood County Board of Education heard a proposal Tuesday for a new position within the safety and security department.

Kaleb Lawrence, assistant superintendent of operations, spoke to the board about creating a director of safety and security position to help address growing duties.

Responsibilities are handled largely by a single safety coordinator, Jeremy Bell, who is responsible for both front-line response and strategic planning, Lawrence said. Those duties include receiving and investigating reports of threats; dealing with Child Protective Services referrals and “Handle with Care” incidents; conducting employee investigations, with an average of five such cases per month; reviewing video footage from school security and bus cameras, including responding to parent requests to view footage;

conducting and observing safety drills; training staff on procedures and use of safety equipment; and planning and overseeing physical security improvements – such as upgrading cameras or installing security window film.

Lawrence also talked about increasing concerns about student safety amidst rising mental health issues and school-based threats.

(Photo by Douglass Huxley) Kaleb Lawrence, assistant superintendent of operations, addresses the Wood County Board of Education Tuesday about creating a director of safety and security position to help address the growing responsibilities faced by current staff.

“We’re all aware that mental health issues are on the rise. School-based threats and violence across the country are on the rise,” Lawrence said. “If we only have one person with all these things on the rise that could happen, if that person ever takes a vacation, what do we do? We just need a little bit of help. We’re a large county.”

Lawrence said money for this position would not come from the district’s general fund but from levy funds.

“Money is specifically earmarked in the levy for safety and security. I know this board is very budget-conscious, so I wanted to lead off with that,” he said.

Board members asked to see the safety and security department’s budget to get a better idea of how this new position would impact it.

“I think one of the things I would like to see is a breakdown of that,” Board President Justin Raber said. “(That) $2.5 (million) each year in the excess levy. … I’d like to see a budget, and if we can, what we’re looking at budgeting over the next few years with these funds as well. So that way we can look at what this looks like.”

Lawrence said a full budget would be presented to the board.

Board member Debbie Hendershot asked if this new position would affect funding for bus aides.

“I want to make sure there’s money for aides to protect the kids on the school buses,” Hendershot said.

Raber said there hasn’t been a proposal brought to the board about aides yet and that would need to come from the administration before funding for aides could be discussed.

Hendershot also asked why the district couldn’t have school resource officers pick up some of the work from the safety and security department.

“They’re not our employees, and we can’t delegate duties to them,” he said. “It is up to their body to determine what their duties are as an SRO. … Because essentially, what it is, if we don’t reimburse them for being in our schools, there’s the potential that they would pull them out because they’re not being reimbursed.”

Jason Hughes, director of the Wood County Technical Center and the Caperton Center for Applied Technology, shared positive news to the board about continued growth and future visions for career technical education enrollment and programming.

“Our enrollment continues to increase. We’ve not quite reached that plateau or that area of enrollment I’ve been hoping for of 500-plus students, but we’re closer than ever. We’re right around 470 at both campuses. So that represents a continual increase over the last four years,” he said.

Hughes also shared recent performance data gains that reflect the center’s ongoing effort to document work-based learning and adapt to evolving state targets.

“Three years ago, our report card had a 77. … We jumped to 87 last year, and this year we’re at 83,” Hughes said.

He said the center is also fixing coding issues and increasing middle school CTE programs with an eye on further growth.

“I’m still not satisfied with the fact that in this county, with all the options we’ve added, we still can’t get over half of our students involved in CTE – still a challenge that I am pursuing,” Hughes said.

He said growth is also being made at the Tech Center as it aims to develop more internship, job shadowing and apprenticeship opportunities with the help of a recently added CTE guidance counselor. He said there are also plans to add two new programs.

“We’re going to probably bring back HVAC as an option, and sheet metal that goes with that, and dental assistant – we keep hearing that would be a nice position to go with our existing medical programs,” Hughes said.