A change in testing dates by the state of Alabama forced the Crenshaw County Board of Education to change its Spring Break dates at Monday night’s meeting.

Spring Break was originally scheduled for April 16-20, but it was amended to April 23-27.

“There’s not an easy way to do Spring Break,” said Superintendent Randy Wilkes. “We really don’t have a better solution when it comes to the things the State Department says is important.”

Board member Steve Sanders asked about the possibility of moving Spreak Break to earlier in the semester to avoid having a week-long break a month before school lets out.

Billie Thompson, the system’s director of testing, was present at the meeting, and she said that several school systems have changed Spring Break to begin on the last day of March.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how that reflects in the AYP results,” she said. “Very few systems are willing to jump into that.”

Wilkes also expressed reservations about taking time off in the weeks before state testing begins.

“If you were playing in the state championship game, you wouldn’t go without practicing the entire week before,” he said.

“I know we don’t have any choice tonight, but I think it’s something we need to look at going forward,” Sanders said about trying to work out an earlier break.

In other business, the school system is looking into revising their code of conduct and policy manual.

“We need to consider a revision, in my opinion,” Wilkes said. “There are several categories and some language that needs to be brought up to date. A lot of things have changed since 1975, even though a majority of policies are probably dated 1996.”

The cost of hiring a firm to conduct a revision would be over $10,000.

No action was taken on the matter.

The board was informed of $9,400 damage that was done to Luverne High School during last week’s severe thunderstorms.

The bleachers at the LHS softball field were flipped into the trees and a portable batting cage was destroyed after being blown across a parking lot.

Adam Bryan was recognized with a Certificate of Outstanding Performance because 10 percent or less of the system’s buses had defects during a recent inspection.

The board also learned that with the exception of one building at Highland Home, surveillance equipment has been installed in the schools.

“Each class has a minimum of two cameras,” Wilkes said. “We installed 252 cameras for a little less than $18,000.”

Xirrus Wireless is also finishing its upgrade of the schools’ infrastructure through a B-Top grant, and Wilkes said he hopes the project will be finished by the beginning of next year.

In board elections, Troy Hudson was re-elected president, while Steve Sanders was elected as vice-president.