The Board of Education formally hired Randy Fullington as the new principal at Highland Home School during Monday’s board meeting.

The contract of current HHS principal Barry Gross was not renewed for next school year and expires on June 30.

Fullington spent several years in Butler County as the head of the science department and head basketball coach at Greenville High School before becoming the assistant principal at Luverne High School in 2008.

Fullington then served as athletic director for Class 6A Hewitt-Trussville and as principal at Prattville Christian Academy.

“He has a lot of the qualifications we are looking for, and we are excited that he is looking to return,” said Superintendent Randy Wilkes.

In other business, the school system is moving forward with its school safety plans.  Because the renovations are related to safety, Wilkes said the system isn’t required to take bids.

“I have worked with Commercial Door Products of Montgomery to change some 700 locks in the system, and the estimate for it is under $50,000,” he said.

The system would be proprietary, which means that only a specialized machine could make copies of the keys.

Wilkes said he expects work to begin at Brantley High School after Memorial Day, followed by Luverne and Highland Home.

“This is all local money,” he said. “We’re spending our money first and foremost on safety.”

Additional security cameras are also on the horizon for the county.

Wilkes said he had been in discussion with Interscapes of Montgomery and the plan is to purchase 105 additional cameras for school campuses for under $75,000.

“That would bring the total to 347 cameras in the system,” he said. “We ought to be able to tell what’s going on.”

The Board also looked a possible school calendars for next year.

The Alabama Legislature passed a resolution that limited school systems’ options for the current school year, but Wilkes said there was a sunset on that measure.

Because of that, it will apply to the beginning of the 2013-14 school year, but not the end, which means that school can’t start before Aug. 19 but they can go beyond Memorial Day if they choose.

Two potential calendars will be given to teachers for feedback, and one of the versions puts teachers’ professional development days at the beginning of the school year, allowing them to finish before Memorial Day.

Wilkes said that would be possible because of the training that will be required for the iLearn initiative and other training before school starts.

The plan would fall short of the mandated 180 days by one day, but the system would meet the alternate equivalent requirement of 1,080 hours of instruction.