Members of the Harlan Independent School Board discussed the physical fitness of students throughout the district during Thursday night's school board meeting.

The board approved the district wellness report given by Director of Student Services Mary Lou McCarthy. Each year, the school district is required to evaluate the nutrition and physical activity environment, to summarize their findings and recommend improvements.

"For the nutrient amounts, we took a weekly menu from the cafeteria and looked at everything we served that week," McCarthy said. "From this analysis, we met or exceeded the requirements in iron, calcium, protein and vitamins A, B and C."

McCarthy noted that work still needs to be done on the amount of total fat served in lunches.

"It's recommended that 30 percent of calories come from total fat, and ours is 31 percent, so we're not way off," McCarthy said.

McCarthy also stressed a need for longer lunch periods. They school board discussed possible solutions, including lengthening the school day or changing the order in which students go to lunch.

"We have been concerned about the length of the lunch period for a long time. If we could give them five or 10 more minutes it would help a lot, but we can't do that with one cafeteria. Hopefully, we will be able to change that in the near future," said board chairman Joe Meadors.

Members of the board discussed possible solutions to make the entrances of buildings throughout the district more secure. Superintendent David Johnson said he recently gave a districtwide tour to Jeremy Baird of KSPA. Baird looked at traffic flow, student access and several other factors to get an idea of what the district's needs are.

"He said that our cameras are better than he has seen at most other schools," Johnson said. "For access to the buildings, he primarily recommended a buzzer system with card swipes that would be available to administrators."

The board discussed results from the EXPLORE Assessment test given last fall. EXPLORE is an assessment based on the ACT that is given to eighth-graders.

"Relative to last year's scores, we improved in all content areas and are at or above the national average in all areas but math," Johnson said. "While we did improve, our concern is that they are still lower than we would like for them to be."

The board passed a motion to remain with the district's current day care structure. Several possible solutions were discussed, but none appeared to be a better replacement for the current structure.

After reviewing the consent agenda, the board:

-- Approved minutes from its previous meeting;

-- Approved a board policy amendment regarding off-campus dual credit courses;

-- Approved reports from treasurer, personnel and enrollment/attendance improvement plan;

-- Approved a facility use request;

-- Approved board training hours;

-- Extended SFS purchase until Jan. 31, 2008;

-- Approved transportation for KSB students with KVEC.