The Weatherly Area school board moved to secure its schools by hiring a part-time police officer this week and voting to continue its search for a full-time officer.

The district will receive a state grant in the amount of $40,000 to help cover the costs of the officers. Superintendent Teresa Young noted that accepting the grant money required the district to employ the officers for at least two years. The state funding would expire after two years, she said.

Board member Matthew vonFrisch asked Young if the district will continue to employ the officers after the grant money runs out.

“We’re hoping the security features of the building plan will eliminate the need for a full-time officer and we could get by with just a part-time officer,” Young said.

William Bartel was hired to fill the part-time officer position.

The district’s building plan, one which would switch the middle school building with the high school building by remodeling each, also progressed with the approval by the board to submit PlanConF (construction documents) for the Junior/Senior High School Building project.

PlanCon is an acronym for Planning and Construction Workbook, a set of forms and procedures used to apply for reimbursement from the commonwealth.

Young said the board would advertise for bids on the building project during the week of Nov. 11. The bids will be opened during a public meeting on Dec. 18 with the final award of the bid to come on Jan. 9, 2019.

The board also voted to hire debt collector JP Harris Associates LLC of Mechanicsburg. The firm will be charged with recovering money from delinquent cafeteria accounts. Business manager Peter Bard reported that the district has $3,200 in delinquent accounts from last school year alone.

Board member Brian O’Donnell opposed hiring a third-party debt collector.

“All that is going to do is add more fees onto the bill that these people can’t pay. We should let the magistrate handle it.”

O’Donnell granted that there are fees associated with the magistrate’s office, as well, but “at least the magistrate is a public entity, not a private for-profit firm.”

Before the public meeting, EI Associates, the architectural and engineering form that will oversee the building plan, presented the board a visual overview of the changes that are planned. The firm offered two options, one which would call for switching the middle and high schools and a second that would leave the buildings’ purposes as they are.