By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

(Oct. 24, 2024) The Worcester County Board of Education is requesting small capital expenditures from the local government.

Chief Operations and Human Relations Officer Dr. Dwayne Abt said that in years when the Worcester County government has supplemental funding, the school system is permitted to request one-time capital expenditures of less than $250,000 per project. In collaboration with Maintenance and Operations Manager Sam Slacum, Abt presented the 20-item list of potential initiatives to the school board at their Tuesday, Oct. 15 meeting.

The request includes updated security cameras for Buckingham Elementary School, Showell Elementary School, the Board of Education office, and security vestibules for Ocean City Elementary School, Berlin Intermediate School, BES, Snow Hill Middle School, Cedar Chapel Special School, and Pocomoke Middle School.

Additionally, the board hopes to receive local funding for new radios for all schools, water heaters at Stephen Decatur Middle School, and exhaust fan replacements at Snow Hill Elementary School, Pocomoke Elementary School, PMS, SHMS, and CCSS.

Slacum said that Shawn Goddard, the manager of school safety, reviewed many of the security items included in the request, such as the cameras and vestibules.

“A lot of these items are direct products of our school safety committee as well as school safety best practices,” Slacum added.

Board of Education member Katie Addis asked how new security cameras at BES would move forward, given the school’s impending reconstruction.

Slacum maintained that the devices would equip the school while the new facility was being built.

“The cameras there are well beyond their useful life spans,” he said. “We have a security gap in that school. The harsh reality is that we are five years before a new Buckingham falls out of the sky. During the in-between time, we felt it was prudent to look at putting a security camera system in that school.”

The operations manager assured that the equipment would be reused upon the completion of the new BES.

“All of the equipment installed…can be repurposed or kept as spare parts, but they will not be discarded or thrown away,” he said.

If approved, the proposed radios will also improve school safety. According to Shawn Goddard, the potential funding will buy 35 “phenomenal” devices for each school, guaranteeing quality communication between staff in daily and emergency situations.

Each school has its own set of radios, and some are better than others. The upgrade will eliminate dead spots for all buildings, which remains an issue with the older devices.

While Worcester County Public Schools officials refined the expenditure request list in collaboration with the Worcester County government, Superintendent Lou Taylor maintained that the commissioners had yet to approve the project funding, which totals$1,170,4466 for all 20. Still, the commissioners will turn them over for consideration.