The Claiborne County School Board voted to implement a Mental Health Policy at Thursday night’s school board meeting.

The policy is recommended by the state to be included in each board’s policies.

According to the policy, “the Mental Health Policy is designed to improve student achievement by reducing fragmentation of services and aligning and integrating mental health services to children.”

Board member Dave Chesney asked for better detail of the Mental Health Policy and Chairman Sam Owens explained that it will better help the school system care for children that fall under the policy.

Dr. Eddie Shoffner explained to the board that Ritchie Hoskins will be taking care of the policy and that there is a “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” that will go along with the policy.

After no further discussion of the policy, board member Bobby Drummonds made a motion to accept the policy and member Michelle Huddleston seconded the motion with all board members approving.

The board approved the “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” in 2003 and before the survey can be given to the students in the upcoming year, the board has to approve it again.

Mr. Hoskins will be administering the survey to students. The survey states that it is middle school but not specify what grades or ages.

The board unanimously asked for Mr. Hoskins to be present at the next meeting to explain in further detail what grades the survey will be administered to.

Kate Reagan, Director of Marketing and Public Relations with Lincoln Memorial University was at the Thursday meeting on the behalf of the interim president, Mr. Warren Neil.

Chairman Sam Owens commended the relationship that LMU and the Claiborne County Board of Education have had throughout the years.

Eighty-six percent of the teachers teaching in Claiborne County have received their degree or partial degree from LMU.

“I would really like to emphasize how proud I am of our partnership we have with Claiborne County Schools,” Reagan said.

Jack Smith, Teresa Bicknell and Connie Wright, representatives with the education department were also present at the meeting.

“We couldn’t accomplish a lot of what we do in the department of education without your partnership,” Reagan said, “Our students, would not become the teachers that they are without this partnership.”

A project that Reagan was there to present to the board was a new opportunity for LMU to be involved with Claiborne County education.

The project is called “Project Plant the Seed” and it came about after a discussion with Dr. Shoffner, Mr. Owens, Mr. Cosby and other administrators.

The idea is to get children interested in college from kindergarten and to show them that it is already there for them at that young age.

Kindergarteners will tour LMU for a day to get all of the experiences of a college student.

At the end of the day, the kindergarteners will receive a certificate inviting them to come back in 13 years.

During the first and second grade years, Osteopathic Medical students will visit the school and present the mini-medical school to the students, Reagan told the board that they had just presented the mini-medical school to students at TNT and it was a huge success.

“We want to show them that they can not only go to college but that they can become a doctor,” she said.

A series of career choices are offered to students through seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades. Each year the career choice series gets more intense for students with an introduction to careers that spans all the way to college lectures that match those career choices.

In the eleventh grade, students will get to experience what they call, “reality check.” The high school gyms will be transformed into a life-size game of “Life” where the students will be given the opportunity to make life decisions in real life situations.

Financial aid workshops will be offered during the senior year for the students and parents.

Reagan again emphasized the relationship between LMU and Claiborne County education and looks forward to that relationship strengthening over the upcoming years.

The board also reported on the evaluation for Dr. Eddie Shoffner by the school board, Mrs. Cindy DeBusk and Chairman Sam Owens tabulated the scores from the evaluation.

According to the contract, four of the six board members have to have a score above 156 and he had five of the six that were above 156.

Dave Chesney made a motion that the board accepts the bids, Huddleston seconded the motion and all approved.

At the end of the board meeting, Dr. Roy C. Ellis was presented with a birthday cake celebrating his birthday on January 26.