The Richmond County School Board is poised to revisit the policy on long-term and short-term suspensions it approved with only two dissenting votes in May.

At the time, now-Vice Chair Tom McInnis and board member Ed Ormsby were the only two negative votes on the policy, which gives principals more leeway to consider a range of lengths of suspensions as opposed to mandatory punishments.

RCS Superintendent Dr. George Norris told the board he’d been contacted by several members of the board concerning the guidelines for alcohol and drug offenses in the policy.

The revised policy allowed for punishments ranging from one to 10 days of out-of-school suspension for being under the influence of alcohol or another substance, and possession of paraphernalia of said substances on first, second and third offenses. The final decision on the number of days would fall on the discretion of the principal of the school.

At the time it was passed, McInnis raised the issue in the meeting.

“I think we ought to maintain a zero tolerance policy on anything having to do with illegal drugs or alcohol in our schools,” he said. “We don’t want the idea to get out there, if you get caught with a little marijuana it’ll be one day out, and if you get caught with something else it might be three days out.”

The board agreed to look at the policy again in August.

In other business:

n RCS Chief Financial Officer Pam Satterfield presented the board with a preliminary plan to apply to borrow about $1.6 million from the federal government for school construction.

This money is part of a qualified school construction bond program included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, commonly known as stimulus funding.

She said details are somewhat sketchy on the terms of the loan and the schedule to repay it, but this bond money would most likely be available at a lower interest rate than the school bonds RCS is currently paying back.

She and Norris explained the tentative plan is to borrow the money and use it to replace $1.6 million of the bond money the school system is currently spending on school construction.

n The school board unanimously approved a resolution to declare the Hoffman School site surplus property, and offer it to the Richmond County Board of Commissioners. The Town of Hoffman would be next in line to receive the school.

The language of the resolution states the site should be offered to the county at “a price negotiated by the Superintendent and the Richmond County Commissioners ...”

The resolution goes on to say if the Commissioners do not elect to buy the property, “... then the Superintendent or his designee is herein directed to sell the Hoffman School property site to the Town of Hoffman at a price of $1 or other valuable consideration ...”

n The board also unanimously approved a schedule of child nutrition bids for foods to be served in the school system’s cafeterias.

Pet Dairies received the award for milk, while Bluebell Creameries was awarded the bid for ice cream and Interstate Bakeries Corporation was the recipient of the bread deal.

They were each the low bidders.

Sysco Foods of Raleigh was awarded the bids for all other food supplies over U.S. Foods, which was the only other bidder. This bid came in at a little less than $40,000 a year less.

n The board also unanimously approved a personnel report, with no discussion, which included the name of the new baseball coach at Richmond Senior High.

Richard Young is listed as a Social Studies teacher in the report. He will apparently split duties between the two jobs.

Young’s contract begins this August and expires next June.