Clinton County Board of Education held its monthly meeting Monday evening with all members present and agreed to purchase two new air-conditioned school buses to add to the existing fleet, as well as hearing a report regarding the most recent student testing results.

Only general items of business were on the agenda for the just under one hour meeting.

After approving minutes of two previous meetings, the board, on a motion by Kevin Marcum, voted to grant a family medical leave to Junior Couch from Oct. 1 through November 11. They then voted to approve one between meeting disbursement to the Kentucky State Treasurer for employee health insurance and voted to pay claims and bills.

Superintendent Mickey McFall then gave the monthly personnel report as follows:

* Certified hired: Ashley Braswell Shelton and Amanda Dalton, teacher at the middle school.

* Classified hired: Jeffrey Lee, custodian and Katrina Smith, aide for special needs children, both at the Early Childhood Center.

* Substitute teachers (district wide): Dewayne Irwin, Ashley Neathery, Michael Tallent and Heather Binnie.

* Retired: Patricia Sawyers, teacher at the middle school.

* Classified resignations: Michael Staton and David Morgan as assistant football coaches at CCHS and Judy Melton as bus monitor, district wide. Supt. McFall noted the assistant coaches had resigned prior to the start of the school year.

On motions by board member Paula Key, they voted unanimously to approve the District Staffing Document, listing all certified and classified positions currently established by the board. Also, a request to the Kentucky Department of Education to utilize $124,542.01 from Capital Outlay funds for general operating expenses. The latter was recently approved by the state legislature under House Bill 1.

Following approval of activities fund budgets for each of the individual schools for the 2011-12 school year, the board had a lengthy discussion on the purchase of school buses, more in particular as to whether the buses should be air conditioned.

The board generally votes each year to participate in the KISTA program and purchase two new buses per year to replace older buses and keep the current bus fleet up-to-date. The cost of two buses, without air conditioning, was $175,202 and Supt. McFall told the board they had the option of adding air conditioning at approximately $10,000 per bus.

Board member Paula Key had earlier advocated air conditioning on buses for certain situations, primarily for long school related trips in hot weather. Board members had also earlier noted it would be unfair to students in general to allow only a couple of buses to have air conditioning for regular routes, while the remaining buses couldn’t afford students that luxury.

The board discussed the feasibility of purchasing air conditioned buses, but board member Junior Cecil noted that if all buses in the future could be air conditioned, eventually all buses running regular routes would have it. However, he did continue that they should purchase such buses each year only if the district could afford to do so.

Following the discussion, Key moved to purchase the buses under the KISTA program, with those having air conditioning. The total cost would be approximately $195,000. The motion passed by unanimous vote.

The board also voted to approve a shortened school day for two students with disabilities who attend the ECC and Clinton County Middle School. Also, first reading of revised 504 procedures dealing with students with disabilities.

They then approved an amendment to the Code of Pupil Conduct to reflect current language in board policy regarding who can administer and witness corporal punishment and also approved two student overnight trips, including a trip for the band to Cleveland, Tennessee Nov. 17 through 19 and the annual National FFA Convention in Indianapolis Oct. 19 through 22.

Instructional Supervisor Paula Little then reviewed the results of the most recent NCLB (No Child Left Behind) assessment from last spring’s testing. (An article detailing those results appeared in the October 6 edition of the Clinton County News.)

One concern mentioned was the fact that under NCLB, students in grade five are considered “elementary” school students although in the local district they attend the middle school. And in the case this year, the fifth grade performed the lesser of the other grades, which may have resulted in a poorer overall assessment at Albany Elementary School.

Dr. Little concluded her report by telling the board that since the start of NCLB about 10 years ago, only about a dozen school districts in Kentucky (including Clinton) revealed a blank “No Consequences” block on the No Child Left Behind report. In other words, no school in the district has failed to meet APY (Average Yearly Progress) two years in a row which would have resulted in consequences being taken against that particular school.

Little noted that was a major accomplishment and revealed how the school district overall, from lower to upper grades, have made progress over the last decade.

Finally, she reported that Kentucky has requested a federal waiver to be let out of the No Child Left Behind Act in its student testing but no word on the status of that request is known at this time.

Director of Pupil Personnel Charlotte Bernard then gave the monthly attendance report for the second month of school.

Compared to last year, total enrollment is up by 11 students, to 1721 compared to 1710; average daily attendance, however, was down from 1,600.44 to 1,595.43 but percentage of daily attendance was up slightly, from 93.63 percent in 2010-11 to 93.65 for the second month in 2011-12.

Bernard also informed the board of some procedures being taken to try to get and keep students in the classroom, including incentives such as the trophy that is placed at each school each month that had the highest percent attendance for that month. She also said she was writing letters to parents, making phone calls and home visits, and as a last resort, taking truancy action in juvenile court when necessary.

The next regular meeting of the school board is scheduled for November 14 at 5 p.m. at the Central Office and is open to the public.