The West Central School Board members approved raises for staff members at their recent Board meeting– the first such change in three years. Superintendent Charles Mellon explained the employees did, however, receive stipends each year.
“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!” That advice will come in handy at the Inaugural Starke County Dodgeball Tournament, hosted by the Knox High School football team. All proceeds from the event will be donated to the Relay for Life Foundation.
Brady Jones of the high school organized the event, and he told WKVI that he chose to benefit the Relay for Life Foundation to give back to the community with the help of the Knox football team.
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.
The La Porte County Sheriff’s Office and the La Porte County DUI Task Force has announced that it will increase enforcement and patrols around prom and post-prom sites this spring, with a goal of deterring alcohol use and eliminating alcohol-related crashes among high school prom attendees.
With proms starting Saturday, April 28, for Marquette, New Prairie, South Central, and Westville High Schools, and continuing through Saturday, June 2 when Michigan City High School will host their prom and post-prom. The DUI Taskforce will saturate the areas around each prom and post-prom site in an effort to deter potential alcohol and drug use, with zero-tolerance toward the consumption and possession of alcoholic beverages. Those who provide alcohol to minors will be targeted and jailed.
The Winamac Safe Routes to School Task Force recently announced that they have applied for a $250,000 Infrastructure Grant to fund the completion of the Panhandle Pathway through Winamac, as well as improvements along Riverside Drive and Superior Street. These improvements were deemed necessary by planning work that was done as a part of the Safe Routes to School Non-Infrastructure Grant that was awarded in 2010. This project will enable safer walking and cycling environments, including roads and sidewalk improvements, and the grants will cover planning, design, and engineering expenses, including consultant services.
School corporations across Indiana will receive a total of $6 million to recognize and award their best teachers. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett announced that 28 recipients will receive Indiana’s “Excellence in Performance for Teachers” award.
“The real root and the soul of this grant was to recognize and reward the most important asset in our schools and those are great people who touch the hearts and the souls and the minds of children, and put their lives on course to be our next leaders,” said Dr. Bennett.
The grant was established by the Indiana General Assembly during the 2011 legislative session in an effort to help school corporations and charter schools recruit and retain effective teachers.
The Oregon-Davis School Corporation will receive $27,192 for incentives while the Fort Wayne Community School Corporation received the most money with $1.6 million. The Bremen Public School was another school in the area that will receive money. That school corporation will get $101,000.
The Harlem Wizards basketball team brings their high octane form of Hoops to Knox tonight to help raise funds for the Knox Band Boosters. The money raised will be used to fund a trip to Florida by the Knox High School Band.
Opposing players taking part in the game will include, among others, WKVI Morning Man Tom Berg. Berg has been saving himself for just this moment.
The West Central School Board got an update on the wind turbine last week from Superintendent Charles Mellon.
“Well, we are in production,” stated Mellon. “There is a little additional tweaking that will be done. We’re still getting some voltage spikes which all three companies are working on and they think they have a solution and will be correcting that. We have been in production for a while and in the short future we should be able to get a read-out just to see what our production has been — say over the last two week period.”
The wind turbine is not quite in full commission mode yet.
“Until those issues are solved and it’s fully commissioned, it’s not considered ours yet,” Mellon said. “They still have their work to do so we’re still anxiously awaiting, but we are getting credit for the kilowatts that are being produced during this time.”
“If you build it, they will come.” That phrase comes alive in Culver, as a number of volunteers have converted what was previously farm fields and weeded areas into something useful: soccer fields for Culver Community Schools.
“We have about five acres out there that used to be just farm field and just weeded areas, and over the last couple years we’ve had some volunteers in the community working on trying to develop that a little bit. They didn’t build any buildings at all, but they’ve got it kind of leveled off and they’ve made two small soccer fields for lower elementary grades and one soccer field that’s a little bit closer to full size,” said Superintendent Brad Schuldt.
Schuldt says that the field will be used primarily in the evenings after school, or for Saturday soccer programs. While players would previously have to share the field or just wait for the evening to use the field in the playground at the north end of Culver Elementary, they can now use one of the new soccer fields.
Schuldt says that there was no expense involved in making the soccer fields.
It’s no big construction or anything like the Liverpool stadium expansion, we didn’t spend any money on it. It’s all community volunteers getting it ready and that kind of thing, Schuldt said.
The only downside to establishing these new fields is the impact on parking. Schuldt says that the parking lot in that area only has about 25-30 spots, and sometimes when they have girls’ softball games, those spots can be filled fairly quickly. With the addition of parents bringing their children for evening and after-school soccer leagues, the parking lot will be filled to capacity– but Schuldt says they have opened up some of the grassy areas for parking as well, so that won’t be a problem.
The Ancilla Board of Trustees recently approved a decision to freeze tuition for the coming fall semester. Ancilla President, Dr. Ron May, was asked if part of the decision had to do with gasoline prices. He said that it was.
“Its a major challenge for our students,” stated Dr. May. “One of the things we have is an emergency fund and occasionally we have our students who need help with gas. Through a mechanism that we have put in place, we sometimes give them gas cards.”
The Culver community is still in shock over the horrific news from Jacksonville, Florida this week. Shane Schumerth, a recently fired teacher from an Episcopal school there, fatally shot the head of the school Tuesday.
Schumerth, a Culver Academy graduate, had been terminated by the school, and after being escorted from the campus returned with an AK-47 weapon and shot Dale Regan before turning the gun on himself.
His father, Steve Schumerth of Culver, expressed in an e-mail to the Jacksonville Times-Union shock and sadness over the shootings and said the family was very sorry this happened.
Schumerth was described by those who knew him as being shy, but non threatening.
Knox Library Director Sheila Urwiler and Library Board members Dave Bullock and Amie Flora discussed the library’s proposed construction plans with the Knox Community School Board Monday night. Superintendent A.J. Gappa talks about their presentation.
“Since three sides of their property borders the Knox school property, they wanted to give an update on what they want to do and also ask for some cooperation with the board on movement of a sidewalk and tying some sanitation lines into the lines that come through our property which could be a money saver for everyone because if it’s cheaper to tie into these lines and it’s feasible, it makes perfect sense. As they expand their parking lot on the south side of the library, they may tie an entrance or exit into the horseshoe drive of the Elementary School, that is located off of Culver Road, to help with the traffic flow.”
Gappa said the project may be a win-win for both the Corporation and the Library.
During the last Knox Community School Board meeting, Superintendent A.J. Gappa and Bob Wise from the J.E.S.S.E. Co-op presented the board with the J.E.S.S.E. reorganization recommendation that moves the organization from a Co-op to a Localized Educational Agency, or LEA. Gappa tells us what that information entails.
“That information includes students being where they’re going to be with as little transport as possible. Next year, most of the teachers will become employees of the local corporations instead of J.E.S.S.E. employees. The Board did approve, on their part, the reorganization. It also has to go to the other eight boards of the corporation members and we will move forward with that reorganization,” stated Gappa.
Plymouth School Corporation will remain the fiscal agent while Knox will be the main site for the Starke County schools. North Judson-San Pierre and Oregon-Davis will be in a group with Knox and can share services, if needed. The North Judson-San Pierre School Board has also approved the proposed recommendations.
Advances in signage technology have made it easier for advertisers to communicate with fans at sporting events. Faced with rising athletic costs, high schools are now getting into the advertising business.
Recently, Superintendent Lynn Johnson at the North Judson-San Pierre School district talked about signage with Athletic Director Rob Vessely.
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.
As children head to the yellow buses for the start of school next week, national bus safety experts are offering several tips for parents:
Have children put everything in backpacks or school bags so they won’t drop things.
Wear bright colors that are more easily seen, and travel in groups when possible.
Most importantly, never reach under the bus or walk behind the bus.
Monday we told you about the Triathlon on the campus of Ancilla College. While on the campus, Ted Hayes had a chance to talk with Dr. Ron May, the President of Ancilla, and asked him about graduation and summer school.
“We had more than one hundred graduates that participated and had a great ceremony and a great speaker,” said Dr. May. “One of our graduates, Mary Szymusiak, Class of 1995, did a great job. We’re into summer school already. It’s up and running and we’ll do our first session here and end it toward the end of June and then start up with a second summer term and keep right on moving.”
With the use of technology in public schools on a quickly increasing trend, Culver Community School Board has approved a lease with Apple, Inc. to provide iPads for all high school and middle school students. Culver Community Schools will be spearheading what they’ve called the “One-to-One Technology Initiative,” which gives students the equipment and opportunities to “learn by doing.” Students would be able to bring these devices home at the end of the day, but they would be returned to the school at the end of the school year.
Emotions were running high at the Culver Community School Board meeting this week, as supporters of the Monterey Elementary school vehemently defended the school in the face of possible closure. This issue was discussed because of a need to reduce expenses in order to meet budget cuts from the state level in the amount of $855,928 over two years.
The Culver Community School Corporation has a number of options to explore in order to meet this new budget. Some of the options mentioned included increasing revenue through a referenda, in which the school tax rate would be raised $0.11 per $100; the use of the Rainy Day Fund, which has a current balance of $980,000; and decreasing expenses through budget reductions, such as closing Monterey or cutting positions.
Eastern Pulaski School Corporation will be in session today and this week’s calendar has changed.
“We’re going to be in school on Monday, February 21st as that was a built-in snow make up day so we are using it for that,” said Superintendent Dr. Robert Klitzman. “The 25th of February was supposed to be our professional development and reports and records day. We are moving that to Monday, February 28th. Our students will be in school all week, the 21st through the 25th, and then not in school on February 28th.”
