Congresswoman Jackie Walorski paid a visit to Winamac Community High School on Monday to check out the school’s new Warrior Academy. Students under the supervision of teacher Karen Butler spend part of the day doing credit recovery. It allows the 16 students in the program to take courses they struggled with in a traditional classroom in an independent study setting. Walorski applauds the efforts to help students graduate.
“Our district is on the verge of just exploding jobs, but they’re not going to explode if we’re not going to have people to hold them, and we’re not going to have people to hold jobs if they don’t complete high school. Whether they go to college or not, the issue becomes plugging into something you want to do and you’re passionate about.”
Butler says the Warrior Academy allows students to work at their own pace. School has been in session for three weeks, and one student is almost finished with his first semester of English 9.
Right now the corporation is funding the program themselves. Eastern Pulaski Superintendent Dan Foster says they’ve applied for a state grant to expand offerings. Eventually he hopes to add high ability students to the Warrior Academy mix. School officials say online offerings will allow students who want to take subjects like German and Chinese that cannot practically be offered due to the corporation’s size. The Warrior Academy classroom renovations were finished right before school started. Right now students are doing lessons on iPads until data drops can be added to accommodate permanent computers.
