The Polk County School Board began looking into heating and air improvements at the older schools in the school system during 2009. Polk County Schools has received grant money to help with the updating of Heating and Air upgrades. Director of Schools James Jones said that the school system is embarking on a major overhaul of all the heating and air systems. A lot of the systems are 30 years old and use a lot of electricity. The grant is for $57,950.00. Bids will be opened in February.

The contract for Director of Schools was approved. In order to insure adequate notification the contract was approved again in April.

Clarification in the school system’s cell phone use policy was asked. Board member Mark Williams said the policy states not to have cell phones between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. and that the waters gets muddy again when you start saying that you can have them for different reasons. Williams also noted that parents should cut texting and picture messaging off in order to eliminate a lot of the indecent pictures and messages concerns. Director of Schools James Jones said there was no doubt the parent has good kids. He added if you have a cell phone you can keep it concealed and said there is no cell phone policy in place for teachers. He also said that as a general rule teachers have cell phones in the classroom for emergencies, not just for talking.

Mark Williams was elected Chairman of the board.

The school system received $167,000 in Forest Service money from a Rural Schools fund that had not been funded by Congress. It was included as an amendment to the financial bailout bill approved last year. The School Board approved a budget amendment for the addition, as well as $20,000 in income tax revenue that had been underestimated.

The new money was allocated to a variety of budget items, including $70,000 to continue funding the School Resource Officers and $42,847 to make a payment on the football stadium at Polk County High School. Businessman Toby McKenzie had promised to make five payments on a loan for the stadium, but he has filed for bankruptcy. He did not provide all the money for this year’s payment.

Polk County Schools was said to receive around $300,000 over two years for special education students and around $290,000 for Title 1 programs from the American Recovery and reinvestment Act for Individuals With Disabilities.

David Bigham became principal at Copper Basin Elementary, Jared Bigham moved to Copper Basin High School as principal, Jason Bell became principal at Polk County High School with Ronnie German as assistant principal. Connie Dunn is now principal at Ocoee Middle School and vice principal is Ryan Goodman.