Mike Snavley, the new transportation director for the Wawasee Community School Corporation, is shown with his wife, Rhonda. Snavley had served the last three years as assistant transportation director for Warsaw schools.

SYRACUSE — With state funding tighter in recent years, grants are dearly welcomed by public schools. DEKKO Foundation has been generous in awarding grants to Wawasee schools in the past and the trend continues.

During the regular monthly meeting of the Wawasee school board Tuesday evening, June 14, in Syracuse, the board approved several grants awarded by DEKKO.

Milford School will receive a $3,000 grant for art education that will allow for artist Justin Vinning to visit the school and share his specialty of painting farm scenes. Students in grades kindergarten through eighth will be able to paint farm scenes with Vinning.

Syracuse Elementary will get a $1,700 grant for art education. A grant for $12,500 was awarded for the Early Career Opportunities Challenge, more commonly known as ECO Challenge, held at Wawasee High School. Syracuse Elementary will also get a $4,000 grant for science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

The school corporation was awarded a huge $600,000 Fostering Innovation and Inquiry grant to be disbursed during a three-year period. Joy Goshert, director of instruction and curriculum for the school corporation, said the grant will allow for instructional coaches and all teachers in the three elementary schools to get professional development and training on project based learning. This will tie in with the school corporation’s 1:1 initiative for electronic devices that begins with the 2016-17 school year.

Grants for $5.920 will be awarded to each of the three elementary schools to help offset costs associated with implementation of Project Lead The Way. Staff will be trained and this will blend in with project based learning. There will be instructional modules for grades kindergarten through fifth for engineering, computer science and biomedical science.

During her report to the board, Goshert provided information about health services in Wawasee schools. School nurses stay quite busy, she said, by not only providing medical services and screenings, but also classroom instruction, attending conferences, social services and other duties.

Other agenda items included:

• The rescore window for the latest ISTEP+ test for grades three to eight will be June 30 to Aug. 12.

• The board approved awarding an easement to NIPSCO so utility lines can be provided for the new Syracuse Elementary School.

• A lunch program audit conducted by staff of the Indiana Department of Education was generally favorable, but some problems were noted with inconsistency in the free and reduced price lunch applications from school to school, which is being addressed.

• Mindy Brooks was reappointed to the Milford Public Library Board of Directors.

• Agreements were renewed for The Crossing and Head Start programs. When the current Syracuse Elementary is vacated after the 2016-17 school year, an option is being considered to allow The Crossing, an alternative school, to use the building.

• Overnight trips were approved for the cross country, girls basketball and football teams of Wawasee High School to attend summer camps.

• It was noted some Milford Middle School seventh-graders attended a nursing camp provided by Ivy Tech.

• A 1028 hearing, one required step in a process, was held concerning renovations for North Webster Elementary. Bonds are being refinanced to pay for the renovations. There were no public comments.

• WHS is among the top 10 schools in Class 2 for 2016 for Indiana Academic Super Bowl. The WHS social studies team qualified for the state competition.