The Clinton County School Board met Thursday, March 28 at the Clinton County Middle School in a special call meeting.

All members were present except newly appointed member Leslie Stockton.

Stockton has been appointed to the board after long time board member Paula Key announced her retirement in January.

The meeting was called to order at 12:00 noon by Chairman Kevin Marcum.

Superintendent Charlotte Nasief did a roll call and on to the first order of business which was to approve the non-traditional instruction school day plan or Cyber Days plan.

“This is something we do every year, we apply for those 10 days from the state and this year they pushed the date back some so we are having to apply early,” Nasief said. “I couldn’t wait until the next board meeting to take action onthis. I think it’s very positive in our community. I think the parents are very happy and it really saved us this year because of our flu days.”

The motion to approve the non-traditional instruction school day plan was made by Gary Norris and seconded by Bobbie Bair, passing with a unanimous decision.

The second item on the agenda was the approval of a board attorney.

A few months ago, current attorney Angie Capps of Burkesville had informed the board that due to her heavy work load in Cumberland County, she would be stepping down as board attorney, but would continue to advise the board until they hired a full-time replacement.

The board held a special call meeting on Monday, March 18, to try and hire a new attorney, but with Norris being absent from the meeting, the board decided to table the vote after being advised by Capps to do so in order to err on the side of caution.

Marcum made the motion to hire attorney Winter Huff of Monticello as Board Attorney from April 1, 2019, to December 31, 2019.

Sue Irwin seconded the motion and the motion passed with a 3-1 vote, Norris voting no on the issue.

The next item on the agenda was to visit schools and one of the main purposes of this special call meeting.

Each of the board members had a chance to walk around Clinton County Middle School and observe several classrooms throughout the remainder of the day.

Clinton County Middle School Principal Angela Sloan gave a brief rundown of where each board member will be at different times and which teacher and classroom they will be observing during the afternoon.

Sloan also gave the board some more information on what’s going on within her school in the upcoming weeks.

Sloan has agreed to provide more information in a separate story during the upcoming weeks once the project has been finalized.

One of those items consists of a grant applied for by a local pastor that will supply every student in the middle school with a pair of shoes.

“We got all their measurements and we are going to hand them out,” Sloan said.

Sloan also said the middle school needs $50,000 by the end of next year in order to replace the ChromeBooks purchased several years ago.

“We are going to have a carnival to raise money for that. We have enough donations to cover renting the inflatables, dunking booth, buying all the prizes and getting most of the food. Anything we make that day is pure profit,” Sloan said. “We have got several businesses in town to donate several items we can auction. We have a lot of nice stuff.”

The middle school has 265 ChromeBooks that will have a “end of life” at the end of next year according to Sloan.

“We have to start now,” Sloan said.

Sloan also announced to the board that the Clinton County Middle School will receive $8,000 as a part of the Follett Challenge.

“That will fund a lot of books for the library and will also fund a lot of stuff for the Maker’s Space,” Sloan said. “The Maker’s Space has a 3D printer, sewing machines, doodle pens and we can also get materials for that.”

Shortly after each board member had observed different classes, the meeting was adjourned.

The next regular scheduled school board meeting will be held Thursday April 11 as a work session meeting, and Monday, April 15 and are open to the public.

Clinton County School Board Chairman Kevin Marcum and Clinton County Superintendent Charlotte Nasief observed Tim Duvall’s class on Thursday during the special call meeting held at the Clinton County Middle School.