The Harlan County Board of Education dealt with several issues this week with a special called meeting on Monday and regular session meeting Thursday.

During the special called school board meeting on Monday the board voted on the purchasing of two new 66-passenger, 2010 International school buses for the county school system. The urgency of having this special called meeting was because after Oct. 13 an increase of $6,000 per bus for new emission technology. Currently, each bus will end up costing the board $74,901.

Harlan County board chairman Gary Farmer said the buses would go where they were in the most need in the county school system. Farmer explained the buses they would be replacing with these new ones would become substitute buses, used if another bus was to break down, then these older buses would be used to temporarily fill in until the regular bus is repaired.

The other big agenda item was the approval of removing an underground tank at Cumberland High School and replacing it with a newer above ground tank. The tank has to be removed before anything can be done with the school.

Also on Monday’s agenda was the first reading of an amendment to the acceptable use policy for technology. The revision for the policy was to include new languages in regard to new technology, changes in electronic media and also reflect changes made by the Kentucky Department of Education protection policy for minors.

Thursday’s meeting addressed a public hearing on the 2009-2010 tax rates that had already been approved but due to a technicality had not been reported on time and had to be set and approved a second time.

Harlan County Schools Superintendent Tim Saylor spoke briefly about the cancellation of school in the Harlan County School System last week. Saylor said this week’s attendance in the school system had been higher than the previous week and attendance was showing a rising trend and should return to its normal numbers very soon.

“This week’s attendance has begun to raise gradually. We are going back up, but slowly,” said Saylor.

The Kentucky education commissioner was originally supposed to be in Harlan County last Friday but due to the cancellation of school he decided to reschedule.

“The commissioner wants to be here when the students are here, so he has rescheduled and will be back in December,” Saylor said.

The board then proceeded and asked if there was any item in the consent agenda that needed to be tabled for discussion. Board member Arlene Brown spoke up and said she would like to discuss one of the items.

The item in question was declaring the contents of Cumberland High School, Hall Elementary School and Evarts High School buildings as surplus with monetary value. Brown asked if it would be possible to leave the items in the building in Evarts, that the multi-purpose center in Evarts was trying to purchase the building and could use some of the items that would be left in the building.

Assistant Superintendent Mike Howard explained that the other schools had already went through the buildings and nearly everything left in the buildings had no value. Howard said before they could sell any of the buildings they had to either surplus the items out or include the items in the sale of the buildings.

“We have already declared the buildings as surplus but before we can sell these buildings we have to declare the items in them as surplus before we can let them have it,” Howard said.

After several minutes of discussion the board agreed to table this item and possibly tour the buildings to see what exactly was left in them before declaring everything left in the buildings as surplus to the county school system.

The board approved the consent agenda, which includes:

n Payment of claims in the aggregate amount of $1,296,223.09;

n Approve declaring as surplus for disposal of food service point of sales terminals with no monetary value;

n Approve KCTCS adjunct faculty positions for 2009-2010

n Approve out of state trips for Wallins Elementary School eighth-grade class to Dollywood Christmas in the Smokies on Dec. 4 and Wallins Elementary School eighth-grade class to Dollywood Harvest Celebration on Oct. 16, 2009;

n Declare as surplus two basketball toss backs behind JACES as surplus with no monetary value;

n Declare two metal sinks/workstation behind JACES at surplus with no monetary value;

n Adopt a resolution that allows refinancing for the 10-1-99 KISTA loan;

n Approve the KDE Learn and Serve Program Design Request;

n Approve Cumberland Elementary School Beta Club trip to Washington, D.C., on Oct. 30 via chartered bus with Burke Educational Travel;

n Approve leaves of absence (maternity) for Julie Roberts from Aug. 31, 2009, to Nov. 9, 2009; a family and medical leave of absence for Sue Ellen Hall from Sept. 11, 2009 to Jan. 11, 2010; and a medical leave of absence for Diana Woolsey Cupp from Oct. 21, 2009 until approximately 10 weeks (January 2010);

n Approve the Big Smiles Kentucky Program to collaborate with District Family Resource and Youth Service Centers to provide dental services;

n Approve the Kids First Dental Program to collaborate with the District's Family Resource and Youth Services;

n Approve payment of $16,097 Clotfelter-Samokar for work completed on restrooms at James A. Cawood Elementary School;

n Permission to request a disaster day for Wallins Elementary School for no water on Sept. 2, 2009;

n Approval to allow Intrust Health Care of Somerset to provide behavioral health services for the children of the Harlan County School District through the Impact Plus Program;

n Approve agreement with Appalachian Regional Healthcare for therapy services;

n Permission to advertise for bids for Green Hills Elementary roof project;

n Approve advertising for food service bids for Jan. 1, 2010, to June 30, 2010;

n Declare a Toshiba Fc15i and a Toshiba CP6570 copier at the central office as surplus at no monetary value and dispose.