Summer vacation for more than 1,750 Clinton County students will end late next week when they will report back to class on Thursday, August 13. The official opening day of the school year for staff only is next Wednesday, August 12.

Weeks leading up to the beginning of each new school year is also among the busiest for school staff and administration, in getting schools ready, classes and programs lined out and making sure things are ready to go at each school prior to opening day.

The 2015-16 school year promises to be an exciting one and one of change as well, with switching principals at two schools and the addition of some new programs that will be of benefit to students, staff and parents alike.

The Clinton County Board of Education, during a special call non-action workshop meeting late Monday afternoon, with four of five board members present, reviewed some of the ongoing programs that will be in place this coming school year.

Superintendent Charlotte Bernard said among the goals of the district was good student behavior, ensuring that things were safe and orderly at each facility.

Bernard listed under the ongoing accomplishments the Food Service Rolling Cafe that several hundred residents utilized this past summer and once again, all students in the district will receive free lunch under a new program implemented in the district last year.

Board members also stressed that even though lunches were again free, it was very important that parents fill out and submit the lunch forms back to the school to help ensure the continuation of the program.

Perhaps the most major new asset for this school year will be the implementation of the school nursing program, which will place nurses at each of the schools and will be equiped to handle minor medical problems and dispense medications on site, thus saving parents the time and necessity of possibly having to pick a child up from school or a student having to miss a day’s class work.

The program is in collaboration with the Cumberland Family Medical Center’s Healthy Kids Clinic program, which has received federal funding to allow the FMC to staff this program in several area school districts, some which began the program last year.

Board member Jeff Sam said the program would be a “big, big plus for parents knowing they don’t have to take their child out of school to be treated.” Again, board members stressed the importance of parents filling out the forms related to that program allowing their child to participate and information on the program will be distributed during each school’s open house.

Another pilot program for Clinton County this year, which will begin January 1, 2016, is the non-traditional school, or cyber-snow day program, which will allow students to take class work online or with class assignment packets, even on days when buses can’t travel, with the day being counted as an instructional day.

This program could be a plus at the end of a school year if a higher than normal number of days are missed due to inclement weather, illness or other event that may cause schools to be closed.

The board then visited Albany Elementary School where AES Principal Tim Armstrong unveiled an elaborate new computerized system of making sure students are safe, go with the right adults when being picked up from school, and having no parents have to exit their vehicles when picking up their child or children after school.

Each person on the list to pick up a specific student will have a car tag which can be scanned by computer and when picking up students, vehicles will make a circle starting at a front gate, present the identification to the person working at the guard booth, proceed around in front of the gymnasium back door while the student will be led to and placed in the vehicle.

The new student pick-up system and protocol will also be explained at AES orientation and open house.

There were some concerns raised last year about speeding vehicles around the area where students were picked up, and the possibility of a child or pedestrian being hit when going from their school to vehicles or vice versa. The new system will enable those who pick up a student to stay in their vehicle and the student will be only a few feet away from the gym door to the waiting vehicle when led out by an adult.

Armstrong gave a lengthy presentation and demonstration on how the new system worked to the board members on Monday and said he had been working with software experts over the summer to develop the system.Superintendent Bernard said the Food Service Rolling Cafe served some 8,108 meals to local residents this summer and thanked Melissa Tallent and Food Service Director Georgia Rigney with making the No Kid Hungry program such a success, noting Tallent had volunteered a lot of time and effort into that program.

Also continuing this year will be a third meal program, where students who take tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursdays are given a free meal late in the day prior to being taken home by bus. This program will be in its second year in 2015-16. Last year, around 6,500 dinner meals were provided to students.

The superintendent was also proud of other district accomplishments, including Clinton County High School achieving a top 10 percent rating among Kentucky’s public high schools / Area Technology Centers, having the high number of students who are college or career ready.

In the latest rankings (2013-14), the district was designated as a High-Progress District under the Unbridled Learning Assessment and Accountability System. A high progress district is one that is in the top 10 percent of improvement among similar districts in the state. According to a letter received in March by the Department of Education’s Workforce and Development Cabinet, it stated, “The headway you made is an indication that the efforts of teachers, administrators, students and parents are paying off.”

Bernard is extremely excited about the new school nursing program that will begin in the schools this year, saying it fits in with the (school) board’s goal of “meeting children’s needs.”

The superintendent concluded by saying she was very excited about, and looking forward to the new school year.

“Things are getting better and better in the district,” Bernard said, referring to the free lunch and in-house nursing programs and others.

Open House and school orientation is an important time for students and parents to gather important information they will need throughout the school year. The following are open house/orientation dates for each school:

Early Childhood Center–Kindergarten: Tuesday, August 11 at 5 p.m.

Albany Elementary–Monday, August 10: 1st and 2nd grades, 5-6 p.m. and 3rd and 4th grades, 6:30-7:30 p.m.

Clinton County Middle School–5th grade, Thursday, August 6 at 5 p.m. and 6th, 7th and 8th grades, Monday, August 10 from 4-7 p.m.

(CCHS held its Freshmen Orientation and Senior Seminar on Tuesday, August 4.)