Manchester Schools Pulls Out Of Co-Op

December 14, 2016 at 5:08 p.m.

By Keri Koenig-

NORTH MANCHESTER – The Manchester Community School Board plans to withdraw from the Manchester School District Co-op.
The MSD Co-op currently provides assistance in special education for all schools within the district. Because Manchester Schools has fewer students to accommodate for, Scott Bumgardener and Dr. Bill Reichhart explained that the share they were paying toward these services was disproportional.
Bumgardener and Reichhart recommended they give notice to the MSD by Jan. 1 to withdraw. From there, it would take 18 months to create special education services within Manchester Schools.
This decision will not displace any jobs, but should create new positions within the schools. They hope that this change would help the school to accommodate more students with hired aides in areas such as speech, physical therapy and psychology to help students with various disabilities.
The 2017-18 school year schedule was approved. It will be a mirror image of this year’s schedule. There will be two snow days, rather than three, built into the schedule. This should allow the opportunity to try the e-learning days.
The principals of Manchester Elementary, Intermediate and Junior-Senior High School discussed their yearly improvement plans. Many are focusing on completing standardized testing at a 90 percent pass rate for ISTEP, the EAC and the NWEA. It has been requested by the Manchester Schools that the ISTEP be taken on paper and pencil this year. Most teachers agree that students perform better when given the paper-and-pencil test over the electronic tests.
Manchester Youth Basketball and Cheer Camp will start in January. The basketball camp will last eight weeks and begin Jan. 8. They recently finished a basketball club for girls this fall. Many students from schools Warsaw came to participate as well. Cheer camp will occur Jan. 11-12 to practice cheer and then perform a routine at one of the high school’s basketball games.
The Christmas fantasy will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. All three Manchester schools will take part in that event.
The Manchester Intermediate School Spell Bowl team won first place at the area spell bowl competition out of 13 other participating schools. They had the highest score that they had ever had. Abby Love won the schoolwide spelling bee and will next represent the school in the Wabash County spelling bee.
 The 2017 school boards meetings will continue to take place on the second Tuesday of every month. Byron Brunn will be leaving the board. Ruth Zehr has been elected in to take his place. Brunn said he still wants to stay involved in the community.
A parent comment from Dawn Reed addressed the status of the technology survey results. The board explained that the results have not come back yet. The survey closes on Thursday and soon the results will be posted on the Manchester Schools website.
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NORTH MANCHESTER – The Manchester Community School Board plans to withdraw from the Manchester School District Co-op.
The MSD Co-op currently provides assistance in special education for all schools within the district. Because Manchester Schools has fewer students to accommodate for, Scott Bumgardener and Dr. Bill Reichhart explained that the share they were paying toward these services was disproportional.
Bumgardener and Reichhart recommended they give notice to the MSD by Jan. 1 to withdraw. From there, it would take 18 months to create special education services within Manchester Schools.
This decision will not displace any jobs, but should create new positions within the schools. They hope that this change would help the school to accommodate more students with hired aides in areas such as speech, physical therapy and psychology to help students with various disabilities.
The 2017-18 school year schedule was approved. It will be a mirror image of this year’s schedule. There will be two snow days, rather than three, built into the schedule. This should allow the opportunity to try the e-learning days.
The principals of Manchester Elementary, Intermediate and Junior-Senior High School discussed their yearly improvement plans. Many are focusing on completing standardized testing at a 90 percent pass rate for ISTEP, the EAC and the NWEA. It has been requested by the Manchester Schools that the ISTEP be taken on paper and pencil this year. Most teachers agree that students perform better when given the paper-and-pencil test over the electronic tests.
Manchester Youth Basketball and Cheer Camp will start in January. The basketball camp will last eight weeks and begin Jan. 8. They recently finished a basketball club for girls this fall. Many students from schools Warsaw came to participate as well. Cheer camp will occur Jan. 11-12 to practice cheer and then perform a routine at one of the high school’s basketball games.
The Christmas fantasy will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. All three Manchester schools will take part in that event.
The Manchester Intermediate School Spell Bowl team won first place at the area spell bowl competition out of 13 other participating schools. They had the highest score that they had ever had. Abby Love won the schoolwide spelling bee and will next represent the school in the Wabash County spelling bee.
 The 2017 school boards meetings will continue to take place on the second Tuesday of every month. Byron Brunn will be leaving the board. Ruth Zehr has been elected in to take his place. Brunn said he still wants to stay involved in the community.
A parent comment from Dawn Reed addressed the status of the technology survey results. The board explained that the results have not come back yet. The survey closes on Thursday and soon the results will be posted on the Manchester Schools website.
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