The breakup of a special education cooperative will mean changes at the Eastern Pulaski Community School Corporation. Superintendent Dan Foster reviewed the dissolution of the Logansport Area Joint Special Services Cooperative during last week’s school board meeting.
He explained that Logansport, Twin Lakes, and Delphi decided to withdraw from the agreement last year. “One of them believed that they could do things better on their own and save a lot of money,” Foster said. “The other seven of us are sitting there going, ‘I don’t think that’s going to be – ‘ but then Twin Lakes and Logansport, they’re big enough, they can go on their own and the scope of savings for them really isn’t that huge. It’s us and the Pioneers and the Castons and the North Miamis. It’s those smaller schools, that scale of savings there.”
Since the Logansport Community School Corporation was the cooperative’s fiscal agent, the co-op essentially dissolved when it pulled out. Foster said Eastern Pulaski, Caston, and Pioneer are now in the process of trying to organize some shared services.
Eastern Pulaski Elementary School is expected to house two special ed preschool sessions. “Each school is picking up their own speech/language personnel,” Foster added. “We’re going to have an elementary autism/emotional disability room that will actually be at our elementary. And again, Pioneer and Caston would be sending some kids there. Caston will have the elementary moderate room, and so, there’s potential that we would be sending a couple kids that direction.”
Plans currently call for Pioneer to host the junior/senior high school emotional disability room. But Foster said the three school corporations will continue using Logansport for a few services, like physical therapy.
As part of the changes, the Eastern Pulaski School Board last week officially hired Amanda Kistler as a full-time preschool teacher. “Amanda is currently half-time our employee and half-time Logansport employee. She will become a full-time Eastern Pulaski employee.” Similarly, Speech/Language Pathologist Christy Hileman will go from being a Logansport Schools employee to an Eastern Pulaski employee, following the board’s approval last week.
