The Tippecanoe Valley School Board in their meeting, Monday, April 18. From left, sits Johnathan Engle, student representative; Stan Miller, member of the board; Tom Craft, member of the board; Todd Hoffman, member of the board; David O’Brien, president of the board; Brett Boggs, superintendent at Tippecanoe Valley High School; and Blaine Conley, assistant superintendent at Tippecanoe Valley High School.

AKRON — The Tippecanoe Valley School Board met with parents and discussed a number of important issues, during its regular monthly meeting Monday, April 18, including construction plans for a new press box and a set of bleachers to improve the quality of the athletic facilities.

The press box, which will sit between the football field and the soccer field, will have specific rooms for the press as well as the home team coach and the visiting team coach. The football side of the press box will have observation windows for the press room as well as windows for each coach, while the soccer side of the press box originally only featured one window for a scorekeeper and a timer.There were concerns raised by Tom Craft, a member of the Tippecanoe Valley School Board, about an appearance of favoritism towards football over soccer.

“I thought when we decided to do this soccer field, we were planning on building this thing to host regional semi-state at Tippy Valley… I just feel that there should have been more windows placed on that side,” Craft said.

After some discussion the board came to a decision that more windows should be added to the soccer side of the press box.

The new bleachers will replace the visitor bleachers currently used around the football field. Some adjustments have been made to bleacher design for the new set, including seating, elevation and sitting room. The new bleachers will be able to seat 1,293 people, they will be 42 inches as opposed to the old bleachers which were 39 inches, and 2 inches have been added between bleachers to allow for more leg room.

The old bleachers will be set up around the soccer field, in order to allow for greater seating during games.

There was time given for parents in attendance to voice concerns or questions to the board, and among those who raised questions, a concerned parent, Joe Secrist brought a student survey to the attention of the board.

The survey results showed that when asked the question, “do you feel that your school supports your emotional health?”, 71 percent of students surveyed answered no.

“I’ve talked to a number of students at the high school since this survey happened, and the perception is… that people don’t care. I know differently than that… I know we that we have a lot of people who care, but we do have that perception… It’s something that needs to be discussed.” Secrist said.

His concerns weren’t directly responded to by Brett Boggs, superintendent of Tippecanoe Valley High School, who instead said, “I wish you would have come and talked to us about that before coming to the board in a public session.”

Other News:

• Changes to the Smoke-Free and Tobacco-Free Policy were approved.
• A Grant from the Kosciusko County Community Foundation for $678 was accepted.
• Revisions to the Student & Staff handbooks were reviewed and approved.
• A variety of Kosciusko Endowment Youth Service grants were approved.