The Knox Community School Board heard about the successful start to the new school year at their meeting Monday night and Superintendent A.J. Gappa gave a report on enrollment figures.
“It appears we’re up about three students total from last year’s ADM count. Last year at this time, we had approximately 1,998 kids and this year we’re about 2,001,” stated Gappa.
The official ADM, or Average Daily Membership, will be taken on Sept. 14.
The work session held by the Knox Community School Board last week shed some light on the feelings of the community concerning the Palmer Wing project at the elementary school. Superintendent A.J. Gappa explained that of the three options available – do nothing, renovate the existing wing, or build a new one – the consensus seemed to favor constructing a new wing.
With just over a dozen patrons in attendance alongside staff members at the meeting, Gappa says the majority seemed to favor the idea of building a new wing and carrying on with classes as normal until the wing has been completed. Then, classes would be added to the new wing, and the 60-year-old Palmer Wing would be torn down. Gappa explained the new wing would likely be at the west end of the newer structure of the elementary school.
School starts this week for our students!
Several back-to-school events are happening tonight. Back to School Night for all Knox Community Schools will be tonight from 4–6 p.m. The Elementary School has a different schedule for all grades. Parents can refer to the school registration page for Knox schools on our website at wkvi.com for specific details. The first day of school is tomorrow!
The Knox Community School Board approved the advertisement of the 2013 budget. Superintendent A.J. Gappa says the budget has decreased.
“Our budget advertisement this year is a little bit less than less year; it’s about $500,000 less than we advertised last year in the general fund, and it’s a little over $900,000 less than we advertised last year for the total budget,” Gappa explained.
Gappa reports the total of the school’s proposed budget for 2013.
“All funds would be $23,254,000, and our general fund advertised budget for this year would be $14,966,000, which almost $500,000 last than we advertised last year,” said Gappa. “Once we have a public hearing on Aug. 20, the plan will be to adopt the budget at the Sept. 5 board meeting.”
The Knox Community School Board discussed ISTEP results Monday night. Superintendent A.J. Gappa said the scores have declined.
“Our administrators are looking into possible reasons why they think they might have declined,” said Gappa. “We have given other tests in both buildings, like the NWEA test, that does show growth in some areas, but the administrators are looking into that and plan to come back with an action plan for the upcoming school year.”
The summer months usually mean a summer vacation for students, but not for the members of the Knox Redskin Brigade. Director Craige Phipps says the marching season and the regular band season is right around the corner.
“We start full-bore at the end of July and run through the end of May,” said Phipps. “We really do try and give them as much time as we can, but even with that, there’s things that need to be done through the summer.”
Phipps said the staff talked about what type of show to do this year and the music from “Cirque du Soleil”came up in conversation. He explains the show’s concept from there.
The Knox Community School Board approved an increase in breakfast and lunch prices for the 2012-2013 school year. Superintendent A.J. Gappa says a nickel increase will be incurred across the board.
“Breakfast at all schools will be $1.15 this coming school year,” explained Gappa. “Elementary lunch will be $1.75 and the middle and high school lunches will be $2. Those have all increased a nickel from last year.”
The Knox third grade teachers sent home a special packet with next year’s incoming third graders to help keep them reading during their summer break. Director of Curriculum and Instruction Peggy Shidaker explained that these packets contain fun activities for students.
“They sent home a little bag that says ‘I Read, Therefore I Succeed,’” explained Shidaker. “Every second grader, 153 of these students, last week carried home this bag and in this bag there was a letter to their parents explaining the entire program. Through the collaboration of our third grade teachers, they filled this bag with fun activities for our students to do in both reading and math.”
The Knox and Oregon-Davis Schools have announced that they will be participating in the USDA Summer Food Program, and now Culver Community Schools will also offer free breakfast and lunch to any child age 18 and younger.
This is the third year that the school will be offering this program and six sites will be offering free food. For a list of the locations, click here. Culver High School will be offering breakfast from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET from June 4 through the 29 and from July 9 to July 16 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Breakfast and lunch will be served at the Culver Elementary School from June 4 to August 10. Breakfast is from 7:45-8:30 a.m. and lunch is from noon to 12:30 p.m. ET.
Since the 1970’s, the Knox Kiwanis Club has helped those in need with Christmas food baskets and yesterday, members of the Knox National Honor Society and the Student Council, plus North Judson and Knox Kiwanis members, helped assemble those baskets at Community Services of Starke County.
State Senator Ed Charbonneau was in Knox last night to speak at the 21st Century Scholars ceremony.
“This is a very exciting program that provides college tuition for four years at a state college or university, and an equivalent amount if a student wants to go to a private school,” said Senator Charbonneau. “What this does is remove the worry that a young family might have of how they’re going to pay for their child’s college education.”
The scholarships are based on income levels, but the only criteria is that the students conduct themselves in a positive manner through high school.
The Director of Curriculum and Instruction at the Knox Community School Corporation, Peggy Shidaker, and seven teachers visited 120 incoming Kindergarten students at their homes to make sure the students and the parents are prepared for the new school year.
“When we arrived, we were greeted warmly by every parent in our school corporation of our incoming Kindergarteners and that was fantastic,” said Miss Shidaker. “We were able to take them a little Dr. Suess bag and in that Dr. Suess bag each student received a coloring activity book, an activity calendar that gets them ready for school and they received a book. The parents received a pamphlet called Making the Move to Kindergarten.”
The Knox Community School Corporation, along with IU Health Starke Hospital and Starke United, are teaming up to offer a Kindergarten Countdown program that will begin Monday, June 20th. The two week Kindergarten mini-camp is for those students entering Kindergarten who have had no exposure to Pre-School. Peggy Shidaker, Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Knox schools, says this is a great jump start program for these children.
The Knox Community School Superintendent announced that the students will be making up two snow days so far this year.
“Unfortunately the weatherman did not cooperate in December of this year so we had to call off school twice,” explained Superintendent A.J. Gappa. “In our calendar for the year, we have three contingency days and the first two will have to be made up. The first one will be on President’s Day, which is Monday, February 21st, and the second contingency day would be on Friday, April 29th. We still have one day built in and hopefully we won’t have to use it.”
A big thank you goes out to many people from the Knox Kiwanis Club. President, Todd Wallsmith, was in Wednesday to thank Knox Community Schools, Knox High School teachers, Dean’s Food of Rochester, the Knox Center Township Fire Department Auxiliary, Community Services of Starke County, the SCILL Center, and members of the Kiwanis, among others.
The SCILL Center staff and students are collecting coats for children and adults this holiday season.
“Anybody that has a good, used coat that they’d like to drop off, rather than take to Goodwill or put in a yard sale, you may donate it during this coat drive,” said SCILL Center Instructor, Mark Anderson. “In Knox, you can drop them off at Community Services of Starke County, Davis Auto, Integrity Skill in the Knox Mall, Starke United, or the WIC office. In North Judson, you can drop them off at Love INC., Bailey’s, or there’s a box at the North Judson Plaza. When we accumulate all of the coats, we’re going to take them to the Knox Schools and they have names of people throughout the community and a lot of students that need these coats and they’re going to disburse them. We’d like to try and end the program on December 5th.”
For more information, call (574) 772-8001.
