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MENTONE - By unanimous decision Monday, the Tippecanoe Valley School Board approved an engineering study on Tippecanoe Valley High School's wastewater treatment plant.
They also approved to spend approximately $15,000 to repair the bleachers in the TVHS gymnasium.
David Mankowski, senior project manager, The Skillman Corp., Merrillville, said the engineering study on the wastewater treatment plant needs to be done to see how the plant is functioning and if it can handle the student population now and in the future. The cost for a new plant could be approximately $350,000.
As for the bleachers, Mankowski said the work on those could be done in the spring.
Bryan Murphy, board member, said the bleachers should be done now since there are no sports going on. Board member Rod Eaton made a motion to approve the bleacher repairs and Murphy made the second.
Hal Hoffman asked about holding off on the bleachers and seeing how much the school corporation has left after all the TVHS renovation and improvement work is completed. Or, he suggested, maybe waiting until the summer.
Superintendent Dr. Daniel Kramer said there are camp activities in the gym in the summer, but they might be able to move those around. The board then took a vote on the bleachers and everyone agreed to upgrade the bleachers in the spring. Lee Co. will fix them for $15,000 with a yearly maintenance of an estimated $2,500 to $5,000.
The board also approved to tell Infinity flooring they will go with another flooring provider for the weight room if Infinity doesn't reduce their cost estimate.
A report on Valley's Fall 2004 ISTEP scores was presented.
For English and language arts, in grade 10, 63 percent passed; 62 percent in grade 9; 63 percent, grade eight; 65 percent, grade seven; 68 percent, grades five and six; 66 percent, grade four; and 75 percent, grade three.
For math, in grade 10, 57 percent passed; grade nine, 61 percent; grade eight, 73 percent; grade seven, 77 percent; grade six, 85 percent; grade five, 74 percent; grade four, 71 percent; and grade three, 78 percent.
In other business, the school board:
• Approved the 2005-06 calendar.
"I like it," said Murphy.
"It looks very flexible on paper," said Eaton.
Kramer said fall break will be only one day instead of two and Christmas break will be eight days instead of 10. By making those changes, Kramer said, it will provide snow makeup days to prevent extending the school year beyond the last school day of May 31. Students still will have 182 school days and teachers will have 185 work days.
The first day of school for Valley students is Aug. 19; fall break is Sept. 28; Thanksgiving vacation is Nov. 24-25; Christmas vacation is Dec. 21 to Jan. 3; and spring vacation is March 31 to April 10.
• Held the first reading of changes to the TVHS student handbook regarding student ranking, listening devices and cell phones.
School board member David O'Brien said teachers should read the part regarding cell phones as much as the students.
• Approved a resolution to transfer $202,943 from the capital projects fund to the transportation fund to pay costs attributed to reductions in funding for transportation. The transfer is allowed under Public Law 224-2003.
• Approved the resignation of: Jon Parker as assistant football coach at TVHS; Chris Rhoades, junior varsity volleyball coach; B.J. Walls, fifth grade girls' volleyball coach.
• Approved the employment of Shirley Minnick, assistant softball coach, TVHS.
• Recognized the Mentone Spell Bowl team for placing second in their division in competition at Goshen Nov. 18.
• Recognized the Mentone math team for placing second in their division at the March 8 competition at Goshen.
• Recognized Ericka Shepherd, fifth grade, and Gregory French, fourth grade, for being Mentone Elementary School's grade level champions in the Readers' Digest Vocabulary Challenge.
• Recognized the third- and fifth-graders who wrote and submitted poems to a poetry contest sponsored by Creative Communication. Their poetry was selected for publication in a book, "A Celebration of Young Poets."
Mentone School Board members are David O'Brien, Bryan Murphy, Rod Eaton, Mark Wise and Hal Hoffman. They meet at 7:30 p.m. on the second Monday of every month.
