The Knox Community School Board members discussed the J.E.S.S.E. reorganization at their meeting Monday night.
Superintendent A.J. Gappa explains the reasoning behind the reorganization of the special education cooperative.
“Some people thinks it’s to save money, but that’s not the case,” said Gappa. “It’s for the best interest of the students. We wanted students to travel less so we’ve tried to keep the students in their home schools as much as possible. If they do have to go to a different site, then we will make that travel as little as possible.”
Knox will be in a service district with North Judson-San Pierre and Oregon-Davis Schools.
“Being the biggest of the schools in Starke County, we host all of the programs. We would kind of be the hub of our service district. J.E.S.S.E. will become an LEA, a Local Educational Agency and Plymouth will be the LEA and the fiscal agent. That means that the money from the federal government for grants and so forth will run through the Plymouth books. The other schools will hire most of the teachers locally.”
Mr. Gappa says all of the other schools that are a part of the J.E.S.S.E. Co-op will be in different service areas.
“Plymouth is a district of their own; Culver, Triton and Argos will make up a third service district; and the fourth one will be John Glenn and Union-North, which is the LaVille school.”
The North Judson-San Pierre School Board approved the reorganization of J.E.S.S.E. for their corporation as well.
