WCS Board Discusses Summer School Program Proposals
WARSAW — The Warsaw Community Schools Board of School Trustees discussed the corporation’s upcoming summer school program and proposed high school classroom renovations during a work session on Tuesday, Feb. 18.
JoElla Hauselman, Edgewood Middle School principal and summer school coordinator; and Dan Graney, summer program facilitator, were both present at the meeting to discuss proposed ideas for the school corporation’s 2020 summer school program.
At the start of the summer school discussion, Hauselman and WCS Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert elaborated on the financial aspect associated with having a summer school program.
“There’s been a large uptick in schools offering summer school programming all throughout the state of Indiana,” said Hoffert. “While that pot of money has stayed the same or even if it has increased, you have more people who are drawing from that pot of money. We always look at the essential programs that we want to be offering and need to be offering, and what’s right for the students while looking at the budget capacity for that. We really took a look at what the programming needs to look like. There will be some changes for cost-savings.”
“We decided we needed to look at what could we do to either cut costs or come up with new ways to get additional funds into the summer budget, but not in a way that negatively impacted student learning,” said Hauselman.
For the WCHS summer school program, Hauselman discussed three different ideas, including the continuation of high school classes at four hours a day for 15 days; running high school summer school classes at Edgewood to continue with energy savings; and reduce summer physical education classes to 30 students in each section.
“This is one of the most popular classes,” said Hauselman regarding summer PE classes. “We ran eight sections last year, which was great for kids. However, it significantly reduced class sizes in the regular school year. The PE department came up with the proposal to have two sections of 30 students in June and two sections of 30 in July. Because of the popularity, we will use a lottery system.”
The corporation will also be offering biology and college entrance prep courses through Indiana Online Academy.
“It gives you a piece of online options versus coming to the classes for the 15 days in each summer session,” said Hauselman.
At the meeting, Hoffert also clarified that Indiana Online Academy is not connected at all to virtual online charters.
“Down the road, this could provide some AP choices that we don’t currently have,” said Hoffert.
In regards to the summer school program for students in pre-school through grade 7, Hauselman proposed changes that include cutting the length of the day for one hour and increasing the cost for enrichment programs from $50 to $150 per student.
“Most summer camps run from $100 to $150 per week per kid,” said Hauselman. “We have been working with the Warsaw Education Foundation to help provide assistance for students who want to do this but can’t afford it.”
“In total, this entire proposal would keep $122,360 in our pockets,” said Hauselman.
During her financial report, Chief Financial Officer April Fitterling discussed classroom renovations at WCHS and panel replacement at the Warsaw Area Career Center. The board will either allow or deny permission at the school’s regular meeting on Feb. 24 to move forward with the two projects, which are set to occur over the summer. Thirty-three classrooms at the high school will be completely renovated.
“That’s about a third of the classrooms at the high school,” said Fitterling. “Starting this year is Phase 1 of the multi-phase planning of renovations at the high school.”
The board also heard a presentation from Joye Andrew, Rachel Sudhoff, Megan Kendall and Megan Smith. All four women work as intervention coaches within the school corporation and help students who are struggling in literacy. They also work alongside intervention paraprofessionals at Lincoln, Harrison, Jefferson, Claypool and Leesburg Elementary Schools.
In total, 356 students in the corporation are being helped by the intervention group every day with their reading skills. 115 students have graduated from the group’s services, with graduation meaning that the student who was formerly struggling is back to reading at their own grade level.
“Our job is to figure out what as a reader are they attending to and what they’re neglecting and help fill those holes,” said Smith. “It’s an art of sitting down beside that reader and figuring out, ‘What is it that that one reader is attending or neglecting to?’ It’s really individualizing the program for each student being served.”
In other business, the board also:
- Heard the first reading of policies regarding employment from Human Resources Director Sheila Howe.
- Heard the reading of policies regarding social media and its usage from Chief Technology Officer Brad Hagg.
The board’s next regular meeting session will be at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 24.