By JOYANNA LOVE/Senior Staff Writer

Clanton Intermediate School staff was recognized for receiving the highest score in the county on the state’s A-F report card during the Chilton County Board of Education meeting on Feb. 20.

CIS received an 81/B overall. The school received a 91.99 on academic growth and a 66.46 on academic achievement.

Principal Louise Pitts said the student success was the result of “the whole school working together as one.”

Pitts applauded her staff for coming to the school in June to begin planning for the school year.

“We talked about making Clanton Intermediate School the pride of Chilton County, and you can see the results of that,” Pitts said. “These people here have looked at data. They know how to read data. They are able to assess their children and look at all that data and determine what their next steps are in instruction.”

New programs were implemented to help students improve.

“With all of their hard work we did have the highest report card score in the county,” Pitts said.

The board also approved the school calendar for the 2018-2019 school year. Teacher in-service will be Aug. 1-8 with students starting on Aug. 9. Fall Break will be Oct. 8 and 9. School will dismiss on Dec. 20 at 1 p.m. and be closed until Jan. 2. Teachers will attend in-service Jan. 3-4. Students will return Jan. 7.

The only change to the calendar from the 2017-2018 school year calendar is that teachers will not have an in-service day after spring break. The teacher work day had been moved to May 6.

Spring break for the 2018-2019 school year will be March 25 to 29. The last day of school will be May 23.

Several long-term substitute and regular substitute teachers, along with hiring a central office custodian and five leave requests were approved by the board as one item. Committee member Pam Price abstained. Board member Curtis Smith was absent. Board president Lori Patterson voted against. Board members Keith Moore, Linda Hand, Joe Mims and Jim Shannon voted in favor.