For the first time in a long time, the Knox Elementary staff will hold parent/teacher conferences. Since the state mandated that all schools have 180 full days of instruction, that dropped the ability to have parent/teacher conferences during the day so they were eliminated. Superintendent A.J. Gappa said that they’re bringing them back next week.
The Kankakee Valley Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #129 in Starke County received a donation from a Knox Elementary student, Kindergartener Jack Guzman.
The student collected money he found around the house and collected small donations from family members. He donated his money in support of the F.O.P.’s program “Shop with a Cop”, which is a program that allows officers and auxiliary members of the F.O.P. to take children from throughout Starke County shopping for school clothes and supplies.
The Knox Redskin Brigade will be performing in the Regional Marching Band competition tomorrow at Chesterton High School at 1:49 p.m. CT. Knox will be in competition with the John Glenn Falcon Pride band in Class C. John Glenn will play at 1:10 p.m. CT.
Plymouth will be performing tomorrow at Lafayette Jefferson High School at 6:35 p.m. ET. If the bands advance from the Regional competition, students will perform in the semi-state competition and then on to State competition at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The heart of the community has been torn asunder following the tragic loss of a Knox High School student. Andrew “Drew” Shearin was a 17-year-old junior whose life touched an unbelievable number of hearts before he was prematurely torn away from his family and friends, spurring an unbelievable amount of sorrow in the community.
“Drew was an extremely popular and engaging student and will be greatly missed by his peers, our staff, and the Knox community,” said Knox High School Principal Elizabeth Ratliff. “We also offer our heartfelt sympathies to the family for their loss.”
The Knox community continues to mourn the loss of Knox High School Junior, Drew Shearin. Drew died in a car accident on State Road 8 east of Knox late Monday night.
Drew was a Drum Major for the Knox Redskin Brigade, who is set to take the field Saturday for the ISSMA Regional Marching Band competition to compete for a chance for the State title in Indianapolis on October 29th. Director Craige Phipps says that the band will march in Chesterton this Saturday.
The Knox Community School Board approved the hire of a new Middle School Guidance Counselor.
“The Board appointed Sonia Hensley to take over the Middle School Counselor position,” said Superintendent A.J. Gappa. “She’s a 1990 graduate of Knox High School and has previous Counselor experience at the Mooresville School Corporation. We look forward to bringing her on board. She will begin on October 17th.
The Knox Community School Board has been meeting with members of a committee and the community about the possible construction project of the Palmer Wing of the Elementary School. The Palmer Wing is nearing 60 years in age and is in need of upgrades and repairs.
The Knox Community School Board members discussed the Corporation’s Average Daily Membership (ADM) at their meeting this week. Superintendent A.J. Gappa said the count was done on September 16th and he discussed the enrollment with the Board.
“This year our ADM count for the entire corporation is 1,929 students,” said Gappa. “That is compared with 1,931 students last year so we are two students less. The State had forecast us to be eight students down so in relationship to what the State forecast us, we’re ahead of that game. Of course, we would like to grow in attendance, but I think we’ve held our own in comparison to many of the neighboring corporations.”
The Knox Brigade Marching Band will be moving on in the Indiana State Marching Band contest. The band brought home a Gold rating on Saturday to advance to the Chesterton Regional on October 15th.
The theme of the performance is “By the Waters Edge.”
The John Glenn Falcon band also received a Gold rating and will be advancing to the Regional competition.
The Knox Homecoming Parade was held Friday afternoon. Enjoy these pictures from the parade!
Congratulations to Shelby Gilbert who was crowned Homecoming Queen!
The Redskins lost to the Bremen Lions Friday night by a score of 53-0.
This week is Homecoming week for Knox High School. It started off with the annual Ironman Volleyball tournament. Boys from each class played in several closely matched games. The Freshman nearly beat the Seniors, but ended up with third place by defeating the Juniors in the Consolation Match. The sophomores came in second after having been defeated by the seniors as they emerged victorious in the Best-of-Three Championship Round. Continue reading
On Friday, October 7th, the Knox Middle School will host a Fitness FUN-draiser to promote the importance of living a healthy life style. Students who raise $10 are eligible to participate in the walk-a-thon, students who raise $15 are eligible to participate in the boot camp activity, students who raise $25 are eligible to participate in the dance, and students who raise $100 or more are eligible for a field trip on October 13th to Life Plex. All Middle School students are looking for sponsors.
The Knox Community School Board members honored the recent retirees at their meeting Wednesday night.
“Any year in which we have school personnel retire, we try to honor them for their years of service to the Knox Community School Corporation,” said Superintendent A.J. Gappa. “At the conclusion of the 2010-2011 school year, we had five retirees. They included Shilla Cornelius, Elementary Treasurer; Nadean Emigh, Paraprofessional at the Elementary School; Jerry Slauter, Industrial Tech teacher at the Middle School; Marilyn Wagner, a 5th grade teacher at the Knox Elementary School; and Steve Cronk, Middle School Principal.”
Knox High School Principal, Dr. Elizabeth Ratliff; Middle School Principal, Dave Miller; and Technology Coach, Chris Ross, appeared before the School Board last week to present them with projects the students have been doing on their new computers, thanks to the One-to-One Computer Initiative.
“From the High School, they had a student demonstrate how to solve an Algebra problem, running it through an iMovie plan, said Superintendent A.J. Gappa. “We had an English teacher show who they prepared for the reading of a story by doing research on the author, the story and different topics from the story that they were going to read. Mrs. Berkshire was here to show some of the projects that those students had done.”
The Knox Community School Board created a new technical position and filled it at their meeting this week. Superintendent A.J. Gappa gives us the details on the new position.
“This year, we had a teacher retire from the Middle School in the Industrial Tech area and rather than fill that position, the Administration felt that with the One-to-One Computer Program which we have undertaken, we would best be served by a teacher/coach that could go in and help teachers with the computers and the programs and different objects that they could use in their classroom,” he said.
The Knox Elementary School PTO is collecting box tops for a fundraising event again this year. PTO President, Shelly Kemble, hopes to collect enough box tops to meet their goal.
“We are hoping for approximately $6,000 in Box Tops this year and that will put us over last year’s goal and prior years to that,” said Kemble. “Box Tops are easy to find. You can also go onto this website and register for daily contests. Send the Box Tops in with the students or drop them off in the Main Office.”
Students in the Middle and High Schools in Knox have been participating in the one-to-one computer initiative and Superintendent, A.J. Gappa said that it’s going well so far.
“As we look at it today, two weeks into the school year, because all of the computers are wireless, it was not letting everybody on at the same time for a couple of days,” he said. “We had the experts that installed the wireless system in our schools come back and work through some glitches and the second week has gone much better. Kids are engaged, teachers are engaged and things seem to be going well at this point.”
This spring, the Knox Community School Board met with a committee to discuss issues with the east end of the Elementary School, known as the Palmer Wing. The committee has found that there are some issues that need to be fixed with the 60-year-old infrastructure and building. The infrastructure is not built for today’s technology needs in terms of electric capacity and space. and water lines need to be replaced.
The Knox Community School Board learned the results of the recent Indiana State Police bus inspection. Superintendent A.J. Gappa has the report:
“Once again, all of our buses have passed inspection. Mr. Jensen and Mr. Croft at the bus barn do a good job of keeping the buses updated. All of our buses are ready to go and that’s a good thing for the corporation,” said Gappa.
Gappa said more buses are going to be added to the fleet.
“We plan on keeping all the current buses and we have one ordered that should be in later this Fall. It will be one of the larger buses. We’re also anticipating possibly buying another minibus to add to the fleet,” Gappa said.
Students will be returning to classrooms next week. Before the students go back to the Eastern Pulaski School Corporation, Elementary students are invited to participate in the meet the teacher night on Tuesday, August 16th 5:00-6:00 p.m. ET. Meet the teacher night for Middle and High School students will be from 5:30-6:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday. School begins for all students in the Eastern Pulaski School Corporation on Wednesday, August 17th.
