CLAY COUNTY-School board members dealt with several items of regular business at their last three monthly meetings to end their work for the year 2010, including the question of how much TCAP testing should count towards a student’s overall grade in the second semester of a school year.

A motion to set the amount at 20 percent was approved on on the first reading in November and then on a second reading this month and will take effect next semester.

Many other matters were addressed in the past three meetings, with the first of the trio of 2010 final quarter gatherings for school board members being held at Maple Grove School and the November and December meetings returning to the regular meeting site at the Clay County Schools Central Office in Celina.

October

The meeting at Maple Grove held October 4 first saw the approval of the general purpose school budget amendment #1 FY 2010-2011, before the Report of School System/School Compliance was also approved, according to minutes from the meeting.

Board members then decided to request bids for Pre-K playground equipment and to rebid a future lawn mower purchase and broaden the specs to a minimum 25 HP and 54” cut, minutes said.

Action on bids for desktop and tablet computers to be purchased by the school system was then postponed, but members did approve the bid for a telephone system for Hermitage Springs School from North Central Telephone Cooperative.

A motion to lower to $5,000 the purchase amount required to have bids was also approved.

Minutes said Cassie Hall was approved as a volunteer assistant cheerleading coach at Hermitage Springs School and Tiffany Brown was approved to run the Celina K-8 Jr. Pro basketball program.

Members were then chosen to serve on the Student Disciplinary Hearing Authority Committee for 2010-2011 and the board voted to approve the Fixed Assets policy on 2nd reading.

The following trip requests were approved as the last items of business heard by the board in Ocotber:  Clay County High School Jr. Beta and Hermitage Springs Jr. Beta to the Opryland Hotel for the Beta Convention held November 22-23, and Clay County High School PYLI to Fall Creek Falls for a leadership camp held November 12-14.

November

The November meeting saw more of the same as board members approved the 2010-2011 mathematics textbook adoption committees and voted to set 20% as the amount that TCAP and End-of-Course tests will count toward the second semester grade.

They then voted to suspend school board policy 2.809 Vendor Relations for the awarding of bids on computers and to approve the bid from B and D Computers for computers–$835 for desktops and $1,600 for laptops, meeting minutes said.

A bid from PRECO, Inc. for $19,892 for the vent hood project at Maple Grove School was also approved, as well as trip request from the Celina K-8 Jr. Beta Club to attend the Jr. Beta Convention in Nashville.

The consideration on the second reading for lowering the purchase amount required to have bids to $5,000 then died from a lack of a motion before the meeting adjourned.

December

In a short December meeting school board members only dealt with three items of business to end the year.

The first was the approval of setting 20% as the amount that TCAP tests will count toward the second semester grade on the second reading.

Secondly, members approved the Child Life Services Agreement between Clay County Schools and Vanderbilt University.

Minutes from the meeting then said board members voted to approve the Energy Efficient Schools Initiative Incentive Grant for $1,036 to install energy efficient lighting at Hermitage Springs School, which served as their final action in 2010.