Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
AKRON -ÊTippecanoe Valley Schools' alternative and special education programs are thriving, director of special services Cheryl Myers reported to the board Monday.
Myers said the alternative school now has 58 students, up from 12 last fall, and just celebrated the graduation of its first students.
According to Myers, 39 of the students came of their own will, not because of discipline problems. Seven came because of pregnancy, two because of parent choice, four are past dropouts returning to school and six were expelled from the high school.
Myers said there are still many misconceptions about the program at Burket Educational Center. The strongest is that the school is for "bad kids." Only twice this year has there been a discipline-related office referral.
Many students attend because they need to work and require a flexible class schedule or to accommodate other family situations.
Goals for the program include inplementing a middle-school component and possibly increasing staff.
The special education program is in the final stages of the decentralization process, Myers said. Next year, teachers anticipate sharing only physical, occupational therapy and hearing impaired services and the data tracking system.
Until now, special education services were shared between a network of schools called the NCI Co-op. The co-op has been working for each school to maintain its own employees and conduct its own special education programs.
In other business:
• The board approved a change to the elementary school's gifted and talented program - LAMP (Learning Accelerated Motivation Program).
Until this year, students in LAMP have been removed from their regular classrooms one day per week for a day of enrichment.
Beginning next year, Lamp students will be in a regular class room all week, but will have an enrichment teacher who will come at least two days a week to supplement their regular lessons.
According to Angie Miller, Lamp administer, the program changes were recommended by a 4-person consultant group from The Center for Creative Learning.
The new program is expected to encourage higher participation because students will not be singled out to leave the regular classroom.
• Recognized Akron Elementary School's 4th Grade Reading Rocks book club; the Akron Hoosier Spell Bowl; Akron Math Team; Akron Pride Council and Akron's Peace project.
• Recognized teachers, Bernadean Howard and Deb Tillman, who were nominated for the Disney Hand Teacher Award. The award is highly competitive with about 140,000 nominations nation-wide and five winners.
• Recognized Dr. Mark Harris and Akron Vision Center. Harris provides free vision screenings for kindergarten students.
• Recognized Akron students Gus Lukens and Chris Baga. Lukens is the local winner of the Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest and Baga won the fifth grade Drug Abuse Resistance Education training essay contest.
Board members are president Mark Wise, vice president Hal Hoffman, Rod Eaton, David O'Brien and Bryan Murphy. The next school board meeting is April 1 at 7:30 p.m. 9 at the Mentone Elementary public meeting room.
