SYRACUSE - Originally, the North Central Indiana Cooperative included five school corporations.

The special needs students of Bremen, Tippecanoe Valley, Warsaw, Wawasee and Whitko were served through the centralized cooperative for efficiency.

Then, in the 1990s, the NCI began to decentralize. First, the students were moved back to their home schools. In the mid-1990s, the staff was decentralized.

Now, the administration is being decentralized.

At the Wawasee Community School Corp. Board of School Trustees meeting Tuesday, the school board approved Wendy Hite to be the supervisor for Wawasee's special education services as part of that decentralization. Hite will resign from the Warsaw School Corp. and be employed by Wawasee.

Each school corporation will have its own administration for special needs and staffing, but the cooperative will still exist, though in a smaller capacity.

Dr. Mark Stock, Wawasee superintendent, said the decentralization will give the local school corporations more autonomy as well as more responsibility. The process was approved by the superintendent advisory board that governs the NCI.

Currently, it costs $1.4 million for Wawasee to provide special needs services. The federal government for 2003 will provide Wawasee with $430,000 in grants.

Financially and educationally, said board member Dallas Winchester, it makes sense for Wawasee Schools to control their own special education services.

There are other details that still need to be worked out, Stock reported, including what is to be done with the NCI building in Warsaw.

In other business, the school board:

• Approved the bid from TGH Securities of Pennsylvania, for the corporation's tax anticipation warrants totaling $9.375 million for Jan. 2 through Dec. 31. TGH bid the entire amount of the warranties at an interest rate of 1.576 percent.

Other bidders included National City Bank, Lake City Bank and First Source Bank.

• Approved the bid from Project Design & Piping, Fort Wayne, of $91,850 for the Wawasee High School rooftop HVAC unit project. They were the lowest of five bidders.

• Approved the Rainy Day Fund policy, which allows the fund to receive transfers of unused and unencumbered monies from other funds raised by a general or special tax levy. Such transfers cannot exceed 10 percent of the total budget of the school corporation for the fiscal year in which the transfer occurs.

• Approved a $1,000 donation from the Knights of Columbus for the special education department.

• Approved the major purchases of the athletic department over the past two years. From time to time, purchases are made from extracurricular accounts for products that are used by the school corporation and are intended to be owned by the school corporation.

These items are considered donations to the school, and for bookkeeping purposes, need to be acknowledged as such by official board action. The highest costs of the items accepted included a $5,278.84 volleyball upright system; a $3,240 carpet runners-gym; a $4,978.40 ice machine; $6,202.76 for two batting cages; $6,270 for goal posts; $4,250 for an aerator; and $2,175 for a swim timer system.

• Approved the annual appointments, including Jim Evans as treasurer; Pam Unruh, deputy treasurer; and Sandy Hollar, assistant deputy treasurer.

• Approved the career and technical cooperative agreement between Wawasee, Fairfield and West Noble school corporations.

• Announced the board is reviewing its options on the 11 acres at the old North Webster Elementary School that includes the Little League diamonds and the old track. The board is not in any hurry to make a decision, board president Brian Dawes said.

• Recognized Carol Swartzendruber for her years of service to the school board. Tuesday was her last meeting, as she did not run for re-election this year. She was presented with a plaque and a lifetime pass to all Wawasee events.

Members of the Wawasee Community School Corp. Board of School Trustees are president Brian Dawes, vice president Carol Swartzendruber, secretary Marion Acton, Jeff Wells and Dallas Winchester. [[In-content Ad]]