Knox High School officials are getting incoming Freshman students ready for the new school year.
Current 8th grade students and parents are invited to attend a Freshman Orientation meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. in the high school auditorium. This meeting will help students start thinking about the transition to high school. Topics will include course scheduling, attendance, discipline expectations and extra-curricular opportunities.
The Starke County Election Board is expected to meet at 10 a.m. this morning to discuss a number of topics, including the Knox Community School Corporation’s request to hold a special election on May 7 in order to present a public question to its voters.
The Knox Community School Corporation will be implementing a new system to better keep parents and patrons aware of upcoming events or other important news concerning the corporation.
Superintendent A.J. Gappa said the School Messenger ties into the PowerSchool database.
A cooperative effort between the Knox Community School Corporation and the Kiwanis Club of Knox is seeking to assist those in need this holiday season.
Knox High School Assistant Principal Michael Bendicsen said that the corporation has for more than 20 years performed a food drive in an effort to collect nonperishable food items. Lately, he said, the food drive has also been receiving toys – something Bendicsen said was unexpected but certainly pleasant.
The Department of Education released every school corporation’s report card this week for the 2011-2012 school year and at the Knox Community School Corporation, the Knox Community High School received an A, the middle school got an F, and the elementary school received a C.
Superintendent A.J. Gappa explains how each school got their grade.
The past two weeks have been full of activities for Knox High School’s Students Against Destructive Decisions Program Director Carrie Stone. Last week was dedicated to the nationwide “Rock the Belt” campaign for raising seat belt awareness, and this week is the annual “Red Ribbon Week” to raise awareness on drug and alcohol abuse in high schools.
The main point that Stone brought forth about Red Ribbon Week was that teenagers are really ignorant to the fact that their brain is not yet fully developed. Therefore, they aren’t necessarily aware that they do not have the brain capacity to handle alcohol consumption. Red Ribbon Week is designed to bring that point to the attention of high school students. There will be a rock concert on Wednesday at the middle school for the students there and high school SADD members.
The Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Knox Community School Corporation, Peggy Shidaker, was spotlighted during the school board’s recent meeting for taking part in HealthLinc’s Back to School Health and Wellness Fair. Superintendent A.J. Gappa said Miss Shidaker and a teacher represented the school in highest regards.
“Miss Shidaker attended the Health Fair along with third grade teacher, Shannon Pitts,” explained Gappa. “They represented the school and passed out information to families who were in attendance that would help them improve their wellness and health of not only their student, but their whole family.”
The pair handed out bus safety information, as well as information on peer pressure. Coloring books and activity books were distributed to the younger students. Approximately 80 students came through the school’s booth.
The three principals and the Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Knox Community School Corporation gave the school board members an overview of the corporation’s ISTEP scores.
Superintendent A.J. Gappa said all of the administrators and the board were disappointed in this year’s scores.
“They dropped in most categories at both the elementary school and a the middle school,” stated Gappa. “Everybody’s gathering together and making action plans on how their going to move forward and turn that around. We’re confident that the plans are going to be successful and do a reversal on the scores.”
The kindergarten teachers from the Knox Community School Corporation and Peggy Shidaker, the director of curriculum and instruction, recently visited all of the incoming kindergarten students and their families to welcome them into the school corporation.
Shidaker discusses those visits.
“During those visits, we met the child, we met the parents, we also took materials and distributed some activity books, an activity calendar, a book and a t-shirt donated by IU Health Starke Hospital. All of our kindergarteners are going to show up on that first day of school with a brand-new t-shirt,” said Shidaker.
The Knox Community School Board will hold a work session tonight to discuss the possible Palmer Wing Elementary School construction project.
Superintendent A.J. Gappa says tonight’s meeting is to gather more public opinion on the condition of the Palmer Wing.
“Part of the elementary school is coming up on 60 years old and there’s some work that needs to be done,” said Gappa. “The board feels that it’s time for them to make a decision. They want to go with one more public meeting to get input from the patrons of the community. So, the board has scheduled an open meeting workshop at 6 p.m. and that will be held in the Palmer Wing All-Purpose Room which is at the east end of the elementary school.”
Superintendent A.J. Gappa and three members of the Knox Community School Board recently attended a training session in Gary concerning the new superintendent evaluation model.
“According to the new law, it has to be implemented during the 2012 to 2013 school year,” said Gappa. “By the middle of September, we have to have an evaluation tool submitted to the State. We thought it was a valuable information session. It was information that we will need to proceed in that area.”
The session was facilitated by members of the Indiana School Boards Association.
The administration evaluation is a lot like the new RISE teacher evaluation which looks at a teacher’s professional practice and measures student learning.
The Knox Community School Board members discussed cafeteria prices this week, and Superintendent A.J. Gappa said a proposal was made to increase prices for the next school year.
“We are proposing a nickel increase in lunches which will keep us in the lowest price range for lunch service in the county and lower than most of the schools around,” said Gappa.
He says the increase in price is mostly caused by regulation changes at the federal level.
The Knox Community School Corporation has started the Summer Food Service Program, and is offering free meals to any child 18 years of age and younger. Free meals are also available for any adults who are enrolled in a state-approved educational program for the mentally or physically disabled.
Breakfast and lunch will be served at the Knox Community High School Monday through Thursday until July 26, although the kitchen will be closed July 4. Breakfast is served from 7 to 8:30 a.m. and lunch from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CT.
The USDA Summer Food Service Program for Children (SFSP) was created to serve nutritious meals to children when the National School Lunch and Breakfast Program meals are not available. To ensure that all children receive proper nutrition throughout the year, SFSP reimburses organizations that prepare and serve meals to eligible children during the summer.
The Knox Community School Corporation will be participating in the USDA Summer Food Program again this year.
Free meals will be made available to children 18 years of age and under beginning in June. Any child is welcome to eat for free at the Knox High School from June 4 to July 26, and at the Knox Elementary School from June 4 to June 28.
No child will be discriminated against and every child from all over the area is welcome to participate. Both breakfast and lunch will be served.
A Kindergarten Countdown informational meeting is scheduled for tomorrow for students entering the Knox Community Elementary School Kindergarten program. Starke United, IU Health and the Knox Community School Corporation are sponsoring a Kindergarten Camp in June and this meeting will help explain the function of the camp. Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Knox Community School Corporation, Peggy Shidaker, has more.
he Department of Education has developed a new test for third grade students called IREAD. Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Knox Community School Corporation, Peggy Shidaker, talks about the IREAD test.
“It’s a little bit different from ISTEP in that IREAD measures only foundational reading skills that students should have acquired from Kindergarten through grade three.”
It’s the test students have been preparing for. Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Knox Community School Corporation, Peggy Shidaker, says the ISTEP test will be administered at the Knox Community Schools this week beginning today.
“ISTEP, the applied skills portion, begins Monday. The test window is March 5th-14th. We will be testing, like every other school corporation, students in grades three through eight for Language Arts and Math,” said Miss Shidaker.
The Knox Community School Corporation will be getting more diligent in collecting textbook rental fees.
“One of the things that was noted by the State Board of Accounts is we have to be more aggressive in their eyes and we need a better policy for collection of fees,” explained Superintendent A.J. Gappa. “We were ordered that we had to either go through Small Claims Court or use a collection agency. In our case, the best direction to go would be the use of a collection agency.”
A committee was formed by High School Principal Dr. Elizabeth Ratliff and a policy was drafted.
“We’re not really changing the things that we do. There will be letters that will go out for fees and we will work with every person that needs help. We will bend over backwards as far as we can, but we do have as a policy now that says if we reach a stalemate point at some time down the road, which could be a very long time, we would have to turn it over to a collection agency.”
The policy was for presentation at the recent Knox Community School Board meeting and the members will vote on the policy on February 20th.
Knox Community School Superintendent A.J. Gappa told the School Board that the Knox Community School Corporation will be hosting RISE evaluation training with the help of the Northern Indiana Educational Service Center, or NIESC.
“We intend to host the first two sessions of the training for the RISE evaluation system in February,” said Gappa. “Next year, according to state law, in order for administrators, or principals, to evaluate teachers, they have to go through this training system if they are going to use the RISE program. It appears that we will be heading in that direction. We want to be prepared in case we do adopt the RISE program. We want our principals to be able to do the evaluations of the teachers.”
The members of the Knox Community School Board reorganized at their meeting Monday night. Harold Welter was retained as Board President, Mary Lynn Ritchie was retained as Vice President and Jerry Fletcher was retained as Secretary. William Satterlee III, from Hoeppner, Wagner and Evans in Valparaiso, will continue as the Board’s legal counsel.
During the Spotlight on Success portion of the meeting, the Board viewed a promotional video put together by Middle School students Colin Kulpa and Jason Christopher. Technology Coach, Chris Ross, helped the students with the final touches but Superintendent A.J. Gappa said the students did the majority of the work.
