On the top of the agenda for Tuesday night’s Griffin-Spalding County Board of Education meeting was the administering of the oath of office to incoming District 2 board member James Westbury and returning District 4 board member Barbara Jo Cook by Probate Court Judge DeWitt W. Simonton Jr.

Cook begins her third term on the board and, effective Jan. 1, Westbury will fill the seat of outgoing board member and current chairman Raymond Ray, who was presented with a gold school bell in honor of his years of service on the board.

And, for the first time ever, the school system was able to receive a student tracker report from the National Student Clearing House with data pertaining to the matriculation of Griffin-Spalding County students after graduation.

The report listed information for 2,553 students who graduated between 2002 and 2008. Of those, 1,544 or 64.48 percent attended college, with the majority enrolling in Gordon College and Griffin Technical College. In total, 971 students attended two-year public colleges, 416 students attended four-year public colleges and 157 students attended private colleges.

During the meeting, the board also voted to have James Pete Graham serve as chairman of the Superintendent’s Search Committee and to contract the Georgia School Boards Association to conduct the search for a replacement for Superintendent Jesse Bradley, who will retire at the end of the 2008-2009 academic year.

Due to the winter holiday break, there will be no end-of-month board meeting. The next meeting will be at 6 p.m. on Jan. 6.