Superintendent Billy Joe Ferguson said Anjuan Brown, assistant to the superintendent and head of security, is now a Carroll County Deputy Sheriff and a school safety officer. He said the district is currently looking for a school resource officer to have in the school district.
“There are a lot of qualifications. They have to be able to use physical force, but there’s an educational side to it,” he said.
Ferguson said Brown has taken the first step and can now carry a weapon, and if a student is on campus and may need a way home or something is happening off campus, Brown can now respond.
“It’s nice to know that someone bigger than me and meaner than me will be able to protect us,” Ferguson said. “It’s an asset to the school.”
Ferguson and Bret Reed also told board members of a new copier vendor. Reed said the school had received two bids from Southern Duplication and DEX Copiers. He said the representative for DEX, Mike Boler told him that DEX would give the district the money to buy themselves out of their current contract with Toshiba, replace those copiers and install new ones.
He said Boler used to work with Toshiba but switched jobs and is now working with DEX Copiers.
Reed told the board if they decided to go to DEX, the school could save $8,000 in a 48 month period and any copier they purchased, they could keep as a spare.
“He told me that they’ll have the copier set at 30 percent and when it gets low on toner, it’ll order the toner itself,” Ferguson said. “So, no one has to worry about ordering it.”
“So, it services itself?” Board member Stella Washington Bell asked.
“Yes, all of that is included in the price of $3,000” Reed said.
During questions of employee overtime, Board President Kenneth DeLoach asked Ferguson how many buses are used to travel to an away game.
“About three or four,” Ferguson said. “Two for the buses, one for the cheerleaders and one for the band.”
“How many coaches do we have?” DeLoach said.
“About three or four,” Ferguson said.
“Six,” Washington Bell added.
“You mean to tell me none of them know how to drive a bus?” DeLoach said.
“But, this is more than the football team,” Davis said. “This for the band and cheerleaders.”
“How many cheerleaders do we have?”DeLoach asked.
“Seventeen” Ferguson said.
DeWitt Cobbins told the board that he’s attempted to put the cheerleaders and band members on the same bus, but it’s crowded and doesn’t work.
Cobbins also told him the band hauls a trailer filled with their equipment that he used to drive.
“Now, I drove it for free and everything was on me,” he said. “But, the next fella driving it may not drive it for free. Your free days may be over.”
“Them ball games get mighty expensive,” DeLoach said.
“I think we get off scot free because we don’t feed them,” Washington Bell said.
She added that her daughter is a member of the band. “They go an hour or two away, leave at 3 or 4, get back at 11 or 12 and we don’t feed them, we probably should.”
“We’re not getting off scot free,” DeLoach said.
“Thank you for considering their safety,” Washington Bell said told Cobbins.
Audience members added that chaperones, parents and teachers also ride on the bus.
“We use to take a pep bus to away games when I was in school,” Washington Bell said. “We don’t even do that anymore.”
