Warsaw School Board Hears Reports on Career Center, Library
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Monday’s Warsaw School Board meeting was just an hour of approving what had been discussed at last week’s work session and a couple of reports. Family and Consumer Sciences teacher Sandy Carmichael, representing Warsaw Area Career Center Director Ronna Kawsky, highlighted some of the activities and offerings by the WACC. With the help of two of her freshman students, Carmichael talked about the “Preparing for College & Careers” course ninth-graders take. The class lets freshmen start thinking about and planning their post-high school education and careers. Carmichael also informed the board about the aviation class taught by Eric Coburn; the Culinary Arts program and the Blue Apron restaurant; the growing manufacturing program; the Women in Engineering course; videography; and the WACC Career Academies Program. She discussed how the number of students earning dual credits has grown from 82 to over 700, and that every year over 95 percent of the WACC students graduate. “The opportunities these young people have are beyond what I had in college,” Carmichael concluded. The other report of the night was the annual library report. One of the figures shown to the board was that 10,315 eBooks were checked out this past year at the schools’ libraries. That’s an increase of 352 percent over last year, according to Wendy Kovach, WCS coordinator of media services. She and the other librarians present also discussed how they are working with classroom teachers to increase project-based learning. Kovach said they had a 46 percent increase in research-based projects this year over last year. Students in kindergarten to 12th grade did 3,033 projects, compared to 1,099 in 2012-13 and 2,071 in 2013-14. In his superintendent’s report, Dr. David Hoffert said enrollment at WCS as of May 1 was 7,164 students. “We have a lot going on inside our school system right now. It is very exciting here and it’s hard to believe we are already in the middle of May,” Hoffert said. At the high school, he said they are finishing up their End of Course Assessments for the year and Advance Placement testing as well. ISTEP testing at the elementary schools and middle schools finished up this last week. “I think those students and teachers are giving a big sigh of relief to be finished up with standardized testing for the year,” Hoffert said. He congratulated WCHS on another successful and safe prom this past weekend. Tuesday is the awards presentation at WCHS, which is when the salutatorian and valedictorian for the Class of 2015 will be named, he said. This last Friday, the co-op held its end-of-year banquet. He thanked the Core Planning Team’s 30 members who showed up last Thursday for its annual meeting to help chart the course for WCS. The board will hear a presentation in June from that team and the next action steps that will be taking place. Wednesday night is when the biomedical science students do their own version of “Shark Tank,” Hoffert reported. It will be in Tiger Central and will showcase students’ work. “I want to end with just one final thank you to our community. Here, a couple of weeks ago, we had the referendum vote, and I’m very thankful for being able to move forward on the projects at Lincoln, Washington and Edgewood,” he said. “We’ll be having many more updates in the coming months as that continues to move forward. I’m just very thankful for the community’s support.” In other business, the board: • Approved the purchase of six conventional buses and one special needs bus from Kerlin Bus Sales for $715,199 as discussed at its public work session last week. • Approved $41,335 for 2015 gym floor maintenance by Hammel Floor Service Inc.; $36,152.60 for 1:1 iPad Minis cases from Gumdrop; $16,752.65 for an automated notification system from School Messenger; $21,000 for concrete replacement at Lakeview Middle School by Butt & Timmons; asphalt pavement replacement at LMS for $48,307.50 by Ranger Materials; $80,922.14 for rotating three-year asphalt pavement maintenance at Eisenhower, Harrison and Lakeview by Ranger Materials; and $60,853 for 3D printer bundles for all schools from CDWG. • Approved $56,201.68 for sixth-graders iPad Mini2 three-year lease agreement with Apple as also discussed at last week’s public works session. • Approved a donation of $550 from Clark Shepherd, Allowing Christ To Shine, to Madison Elementary School’s physical education department for new equipment. • Approved the personnel report, including the resignation of Lakeview Middle School Principal Dr. Jon Lippe. It was announced by Manchester Community Schools last week that Lippe was taking a job as assistant principal at its high school and then will be principal beginning in June 2016. • Heard from board member Jay Baumgartner that the next public work session will be at 4 p.m. June 9, and the next regular monthly meeting will be at 7 p.m. June 15.
