Clinton County students will benefit in a host of ways in the next few years, thanks to a pair of sizeable grants that were announced last week to implement new programs within the local school system.

Several local educators and community leaders were on hand Friday at a luncheon meeting at the Clinton County Board of Education conference center when the grants, and the programs each will fund, were announced.

Together, the two grants that are funded through the U.S. Department of Education, will amount to over $1.3 million.

Those attending Friday’s meeting were given the news of the two grants from Paula Little, Supervisor of Instruction for Clinton County Schools.

“The grant was awarded to 42 school districts across the United States,” Little said. “We will be able to help our students socially and emotionally.”

The most recent fundings will involve an elementary and secondary school counseling grant, which will be used over three years, totaling $1,002,547, as well as a smaller amount of funding to implement the Carol M. White Physical Education Program, also lasting for three years and worth $360,364.

The first grant will provide counseling services for students and their families in grades 1-8. The Clinton County School District will implement the new program as the Clinton Elementary School Counseling project or CESC.

The project is designed to make sure children are safe and that behavioral barriers to learning are removed. It will also reinforce social and emotional support for the students.

According to the grant standards provided by Little, the goals of the grant are:

(1) To expand guidance and counseling services in Grades 1-8 to prevent students from engaging in harmful and delinquent behaviors; (2) to target students or families who have a high number of risk factors for mental health problems and intervene by providing increased counseling services and mental health programs; and (3) to develop an integrated services delivery model to coordinate all school and community-based services available to children and families in Clinton County.

The grant will also require the hiring of two additional school counselors and a social worker.

Eric Dicken will be named as Project Director, Kathleen Gregory will be Albany Elementary Counselor, Allison Thrasher will be the middle school counselor and Dannielle Wheat was hired as the social worker for the grant.

With the grant, counselors will implement the F.A.S.T program or Families And Schools Together, which is a program designed to help families work with their children in order to succeed in the classroom.

The F.A.S.T. program is an 8-10 week course that includes both the Albany Elementary School and the Clinton County Middle School.

Each session will last around two and a half hours per week. The program will include a F.A.S.T. team made up of a school partner, a parent partner, two community based organization partners and a student partner.

Each week a different family will have the opportunity to lead the F.A.S.T. session. After the course is completed, the families will participate in a graduation ceremony.

The second of the two grants, is the Physical Education Program or PEP, which will be led by Project Director Tonya Sinclair.

“I am so excited,” Sinclair said. “We will completely restructure our physical education program.”

This grant is designed to restructure the way physical education is taught by aligning the curriculum with safe standards. The money for the grant will provide teacher training, not limited to physical education teachers, but classroom teachers as well.

“The U.S. Department of Education awarded 77 grants to school districts across the United States,” Little said. “Where the counseling grant is very heavy on personnel and getting people to work individually with students, the PE grant is a little more oriented toward training and equipment. We should be able to get ample equipment to make sure that the PE at each one of our schools is first rate.”

The grant will also require the Clinton County School District to purchase equipment needed to ensure the success of the curriculum.

Teachers will be trained in the TAKE 10 program, which is a classroom based physical education program that is aligned with the Kentucky Physical Education Standards.

As a part of the grant, an outdoor fitness center at all schools will be developed, as well as an indoor cardio fitness center at the high school, which can be used both during and after school to increase students’ physical activities.

PEP will provide a five minute nutrition mini-lessons during snack time at least twice per week at the elementary level.

Other aspects of the grant will include: working with the food services to promote cafeteria events; coordinate community fitness events with various partners; work with local government for increased operation hours of the local park; and work with the local community health center for wellness counseling.

When buying new equipment, the school district will purchase a TriFit system, which is computer based used to complete health and fitness assessments on individual and/or groups of students.

Objectives of the PEP are to increase the percentage of students who engage in 60 minutes of daily physical activity; to increase the percentage of students who achieve age appropriate cardiovascular fitness levels; and to increase the number of students who consume fruit two or more times per day and vegetables three or more times per day.

For the first year, the grant will provide $138,932 for equipment and supplies. In the second year it will provide $124,036 and the third year will provide $97,396 for a total of $360,364.

According to current spending in physical education classes, the grant will provide 60 times as much funding for students in the Clinton County School District.

“I can’t even tell you how excited we are about this grant,” Sinclair said. “I think you will see a lot of exciting things going on in your physical education classes and I’m so excited to be a part of it.”

Both programs will be implemented for the current school 2010-2011 school year, and are in fact already in the organizational stages, meaning students should begin benefitting from the programs immediately.

Clinton County Schools Instructional Supervisor Paula Little announced two grants during a luncheon meeting last week. The grants, totaling more than $1.3 million, will implement new counseling programs and physical education benefits that will get underway immediately with funding for three years.