By Chad Cripe,
Principal, Tippecanoe Valley High School

There are so many awesome things going on at Tippecanoe Valley High School, it will be impossible to include everything in one article.

First, the new schedule for this year is working out even better than expected. All high students have seven classes that meet five days a week. Additionally, time has been built into the schedule in the morning and afternoon for students to work on homework or receive additional help from teachers.

We have already seen a significant impact on learning, and have students gaining valuable experiences in classes that they would not have been able to register for with the old schedule. Furthermore, the new schedule aligns so that students can take advantage of our tremendous Work-Based Learning program and the Warsaw Area Career Center.

Next, the mission statement of TVSC states that we are committed to student success through the development of character, leadership and literacy. Earlier this year, TVHS implanted a fantastic program for character development.

All students and teachers took part in a survey that evaluated and ranked their character strengths and weaknesses. The results were shared and provided many revelations and sparked great conversations between students and staff. TVHS has also implemented a Silent Sustained Reading program to help our students grow as readers. All students at TVHS have time for independent reading from a genre of their choice. We are extremely excited to reap the benefits of this program. We strongly believe the best readers are the ones that read the most.

Additionally, TVHS is committed to the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model. This year teachers serve on a minimum of two PLC teams. One PLC team consists of the teachers in their content area and they meet during the school day. The second PLC team meets during Tuesday and Thursday collaboration time and consists of teams that focus on Technology, Data, Literacy, Public Relations, Staff /School Appreciation, Leadership, and Facilities Improvement team. These teams have all been working collaboratively and extremely hard to make this an outstanding school year.

Finally, the Vikings have had tremendous success outside the classroom as well. There are so many ways for students to get involved in either athletics or extra-curricular activities. Our Student Council received a Gold Rating, the FFA program continues to be recognized for their many achievements, we have a new robotics program and the fall play just finished with three amazing performances.

As winter sports are just getting started we had many successes in the fall.  We had a cross country runner advance to semi-state, showed great improvement in both our volleyball and football programs and the highlight of the fall has to be the unified flag football team earning state runner-up.

It was also just released that Tippecanoe Valley High School is recognized by state and federal standards, as an “A” high school. I am very proud of our students, staff and community.  It is a privilege and an honor to be the principal at Tippecanoe Valley High School.