Exec. Committee, Others To Be Formed To Assist Joint School System Process By Jerry E. Clark   Low Moor, VA (Sept. 24, 2020) - The Committee on Joint School Services conducted its Sept. 24, 2020 meeting, about an hour-long session, via Zoom. Here are some highlights: • An executive subcommittee will be formed with the Mayor of Covington and the chairman of the Alleghany County Board of Supervisors, both Superintendents of Schools, Board chairs for each current school board, the city manager of Covington and the Alleghany County administrator as members. • an Athletic subcommittee and a Transition Committee will be created to begin to deal with items like school colors, a fight song, alma mater, eventual school name and mascot, among other items. • committee members Allan Tucker and James Griffith asked the committee to consider coming up with some kind of a document that prioritizes the key capital needs of the soon-to-be joint school division. Even though the group's attorneys/advisors have previously indicated that both tight current budget conditions and a hesitancy to open the door for massive bucks from the state for school facilities probably will result in little consideration of such items, putting together a document showing needs just makes good sense anyway. • there was some discussion on when a suggested public poll on school consolidation would be held...and there was no immediate answer. The committee will reach out to its advisors to get some kind of a date or schedule for this to be announced. • Covington Mayor Tom Sibold indicated that he believed the committee should be reaching out to the community via the media to put out as much information as possible and to answer important questions about the progress of the group. He advocated much greater transparency. He suggested media interviews or additional news stories and Covington City Manager, Krystal Onaitis suggested that issuing a news release or bullet points after each meeting might be a good idea. (The Alleghany Journal's door has been and will remain open to any committee official or group of officials to speak, refine or otherwise define exactly WHAT is going on, WHEN with the committee's progress on the school consolidation front.)

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