The schedule at Warsaw Community High School will change for Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning Sept. 1.
WCHS Principal Troy Akers and Warsaw Area Career Center Director Ronna Kawsky presented the Warsaw School Board Monday night with a request to pilot a collaboration project at the building.
A professional learning community is the school or district. A collaboration team is a collective group that works together, Akers said.
Collaboration time on Thursdays will give teachers, staff and administrators a chance to meet at a specific time each week to share and learn from each other. Akers believes the collaboration time will benefit all stakeholders.
Currently, WCHS has a seven-period day, with each period being 49 minutes, except fifth period which includes lunch.
Under the pilot program, School Resource Time and PLC will be at the start of the day, with SRT on Tuesdays and PLC on Thursdays. Currently, SRT is during third period.
Periods 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 will be 42-minute classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fifth period will be longer for lunch.
On Thursdays, students, if they drive, will be able to either sleep in about an extra 50 minutes while teachers have PLC. School would start about 8:22 a.m. If students do come in at the regular time, they will be supervised in specific areas of the school while they study, socialize or work on projects.
“From a parent of a senior, he told me he needed that one day to sleep in,” Dan Metzger, school board member, joked.
Akers said details of the pilot project will become more meaningful as details are finished up. Warsaw Schools has master teachers, he said, and they can all learn from each other.
Board Vice President Dan Robinson asked, on Thursdays, when all the teachers are taking part in PLC, are the administrators not taking part? Akers said the administrators will have to rotate in and out, sometimes taking part and sometimes supervising students who do come in to school at the regular time.
“You’ll find that most students will take advantage of the 50 minutes they can come to school later,” said Akers.
Superintendent Dr. Craig Hintz requested Akers and Kawsky return to the board at the end of the first semester and give a summary report on the collaboration pilot project.
The board approved the request unanimously.
In some other business, the school board:
- Approved the legal advertisement of the 2012 budget in the Times-Union on Friday and Sept. 2. The proposed budget, at an estimated $69 million, is up about 1.4 percent from the 2011 advertised budget. However, Chief Financial Officer Kevin Scott said it will be less than that after the Department of Local Government Finance audits it. - Approved the use of Rainy Day Funds to pay the payroll run of Aug. 31 for employees normally paid from the general fund. Total expected cost is $1.175 million. - Approved a $9,000 grant form Riley Children’s Foundation for the Boomerang Backpack Program. The program provides food over the weekend to those students with the greatest need. - Accepted a $5,000 grant from the Kosciusko County Community Foundation to assist with the provision of mental health services to students in Warsaw Schools. - Heard district total enrollment as of Aug. 19 is 6,983 students, not including 61 out-of-district WACC students. The district total as of Aug. 23, 2010, was 6,990 students. Student count day is not until September, and Hintz said they expect student enrollment to increase by then. Beginning this year, WCS offers free full-day kindergarten, but parents have a choice in half-day kindergarten. Currently, 20 students are enrolled in half-day kindergarten class at Washington Elementary School. - Appointed Cathi Cindrich to a four-year term on the Warsaw Community Public Library board.
