SYRACUSE - Wawasee School Board began its October meeting with a report from Phil Metcalf regarding the Assessment, Curriculum and Teaching program.
The program is designed to offer a corporation-wide perspective of what the school system needs to do for accreditation.
"It involved the principals and teachers' representatives from every building. There were some special ed people and other staff," Metcalf said. "Instead of having a team come in and inspect each individual building, one team would come in to accredit the whole district. What that involved was bringing in central office ... and it really focuses and gets everyone going in the same direction."
Metcalf went on to explain that the corporation is held to seven standards of accountability. This includes an accurate record of all school policies; how much training staff receives; how good communication is among staff, and also provides for the corporation to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
"It's a measure of how things get done," Metcalf said.
Superintendent Dr. Tom Edington mentioned receiving an exemplary sportsmanship report regarding football player John Zarse of Wawasee High School during Sept. 24's game with Plymouth.
"In a contact sport like football, it's outstanding to have someone's sportsmanship noted by an official," Edington said.
Edington also mentioned two donations received by the corporation.
Webster Power and Appliance donated five Port-A-Cool fans. These are fans that give off a mist as well as cool air.
The second donation is from The Papers Inc. of a software program for use with school publications such as the school newspaper and yearbook. The board accepted these donations.
Wendy Hite, the corporation's Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator, presented an Response to Instruction report.
"Nationally, this program has been around for about eight years," she said.
Hite went on to explain that RTI is used to help identify younger students who have learning disabilities which are primarily in the area of reading. It also is designed to look at instruction as a while.
"It's not one model, or one program that you're looking for," she said. "We really need to get out of the mindset that these are the Title 1 kids, or these are special ed kids ... they're all kids. The focus is primarily on early intervention and prevention because this will alleviate a lot of the problems before they get worse. But, we also have some instruction up into high school as well."
RTI also involves consultations between parents and teachers, and is designed for student success and to identify which students potentially will need special instruction.
In financial matters, the board adopted a resolution assigning construction bids for ongoing projects.
Project and Design of Fort Wayne was awarded the contract for mechanical work at $749,480. J&T Temperature Control was awarded a $128,000 contract, with Kissinger Electric Inc. receiving the contract for electrical work at $374,013. Final testing and balancing of all systems will be handled by Fluid Dynamics for $8,895. Total cost for completion of all work is $1,260,388.
In personnel matters, the board approved the following individuals for employment with the corporation: Gina Richard, temporary science teach, Wawasee High School, covering Leah Sprunger's leave; Michael D. Coy, year-round middle school custodian; Brittany Falkner, three-hour cafeteria worker; Shanna Miller, four-hour special education paraprofessional, WHS; Allen E. Smith, school-year custodian, WMS; and Megan Vendrely, temporary Highly Qualified ESL paraprofessional, Syracuse Elementary School.Stacy McCauley submitted a request for leave beginning on or around Nov. 2 and ending March 14.
Ron Hauser submitted his resignation as WMS custodian as of Sept. 17.
Wawasee Community School Corporation board members are Mike Wilson, George Gilbert, Rebecca Linnemeier, Mary Louise Dixon and Dallas Winchester.
