MORGANTOWN — Fix one thing, and you have to fix four more things.
Just ask any homeowner.
Just ask any maintenance worker in Monongalia County Schools.
Staffers who keep buildings in the district sound and secure responded to 14,000 work orders last year.
They did everything from painting interiors and exteriors, to refinishing floors — then cleaning up those floors after the occasional toilet decided to misbehave.
That was after they fixed the toilet.
“We just wanted to give you a snapshot of what our maintenance staff does every day,” Assistant Schools Superintendent Donna Talerico said during Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting.
Her presentation was part of a “verbal tour,” of sorts, that Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. launched earlier to remind people of the mechanics and particulars of day-to-day life in the system here.
On Tuesday night, the spotlight fell upon the aforementioned people who clean what needs cleaned, fix what needs fixed — and maintain what
needs maintained.
There’s a lot of that in both camps, longtime BOE member Nancy Walker said.
Especially, she said, in a county with an array of structures from quite old to very new.
“We have schools here that were built in 1928 and 2017,” she said.
“In the winter, principals used to have to get there early to fire up the boilers, so they’d have heat for the day.”
Those administrators and others, she continued, weren’t shy about giving the BOE heat for not keeping structures up and running.
“Fifteen, 20 years ago, all we heard was that there was no preventive maintenance, no anything,” she said.
Complaints weren’t the only thing layering, seconded fellow board member Mike Kelly.
“In 2005, our Workmen’s Comp claims were through the roof,” he said.
That was then, BOE Safety Director Bob Ashcraft said.
Today, he said every school in the county has its own safety committee.
Every maintenance work-er or other service employee is outfitted with the proper clothes, shoes, harnesses and everything else needed to keep them out of harm’s way on the job.
“And we’re always having training and safety sessions,” he said.
“Safety,” is the watchword for board president Ron Lytle, a local contractor.
“That’s our No. 1 priority,” he said. “For our kids and our administrators and our teachers.”
In other business, the BOE added on the case of a student who wasn’t responding in kind.
After a 10-minute executive session, board members acted on Campbell’s request and voted unanimously to expel the student for a year for violating the Safe Schools Act.
Tweet @DominionPostWV. Email jbissett@dominionpost.com.
