By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

MENTONE — Tippecanoe Valley School Corp. students are feeling their schools are making gains in regard to social-emotional learning, according to surveying done by the corporation.

At its Monday, Nov. 16, regular board meeting, the TVSC Board heard an update on social-emotional learning in the district from TVSC Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Tania Grimes.

The corporation surveyed students from grades 3-12 this spring and fall on both how Valley schools are administering social-emotional learning and how students feel they are doing with it.

Students were questioned on the level of rigorous expectations that their respective schools expected from them in terms of academics, how teacher-student relationships were at the schools and the sense of belonging. Regarding themselves, they were asked about their emotional regulation, self-efficacy, growth mindset and self-management.

Questions were adjusted based on the students’ age. Grimes compared the results from spring and fall and how they related to the national average.

Among her findings were that Valley Schools’ scores related to rigorous expectations, teacher-student relationships and sense of belonging improved from spring to fall among grades 3-5. Scores in those grades also surpassed the national average.

Tippecanoe Valley Middle School students ranked their school the highest in the district in terms of those three categories. Tippecanoe Valley High School students also gave higher scores to their school in the fall than in the spring related to teacher-student relationships and sense of belonging.

TVHS FFA

The board also heard a report on how the TVHS FFA has performed in competitions this year.

In June, a team of Hayley Backus, Taylor Biddle, Nicole Ziemek and Amber Evans placed third in the state ag business contest.

In August, a team of Sydney Petersen, Mallory Bowers, Biddle, Macy Petersen and Olivia Jones placed 13th in the state livestock judging contest. Sydney Petersen was the seventh high individual.

In September, FFA members competed in multiple contests. Competing in the Benton Central Invitational in Livestock Skillathon were Sydney Petersen, Bowers, Biddle and Evan Harsh. They were the Senior Team Champions, and Sydney Petersen was the top individual.

That same group placed third in the state contest in September, with Biddle having the third highest individual ranking and Sydney Petersen the tenth best.

Jones, Daulton Alber, Issiac Ramsey and Kolyn Grossman were second in the rookie team in the Eastbrook Soils Invitational, the top rookie team in the Johnson Soils Invitational and finished fourth in the North Miami Soils Invitational, all in September.

In October, Sarah Kelley, Ziemek, Brandt Alber and Grant Nelson finished fourth among senior teams in the state soils contest. They will compete at the National Contest in May in Oklahoma.

In other business, the board also:

• Heard tentative plans on the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school corporation calendars from TVSC Superintendent Blaine Conley. The calendars are similar to previous years. Conley noted one change is that the first student day in the fall in both years will be on a Friday versus earlier in the week.

The corporation will have those tentative calendars on its website in the next few days. The board will vote on those at an upcoming meeting.

• Heard from Conley that corporation staff has worked to get 860 new electronic devices out to students to use for school. Those devices were paid for grant money. Staffers have also worked on repairing old devices. Conley said he was grateful to staff for their hard work, since the devices are especially helpful for those relying on e-learning.

• Approved hiring TVMS cook Violet Malott, TVHS custodian Devin Howard and Mentone Elementary School instructional assistants Lisa Blaker and Alex Rockhill.
• Approved Joshua Shafer as TVMS head soccer coach and Leslie Brouyette as TVMS sixth grade girls basketball head coach and seventh grade girls basketball assistant coach.
• Accepted the resignations of TVHS assistant golf coach Duane Burkhart, varsity volleyball coach Doug West, cooks Austin Bucher and Alaina McDonald, custodians Jacqueline Mace and Kevin Powers and assistant wrestling coach Randy Kearby; TVMS assistant track coach Sarah Simpson and eighth grade volleyball coach Chelsea Brubaker; and Mentone cooks Nichole Tunis and Kim Overmyer and PE teacher Laren Molinari.
• Reappointed Janet Hackworth to the Akron Carnegie Public Library Board.
• Approved a memorandum of understanding with the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office. It’s for the department to supply a school resource officer for Valley. Rick Shepherd serves in that role.

• Accepted a $1,000 Fulton County REMC Operation Roundup grant for TVHS Family and Consumer Science teacher Beth Landis to buy supplies for a sewing project for her class.
• Accepted a $500 donation from the Atwood Lions Club for the TVHS Boomerang Backpacks program that provides extra food for students.
• Accepted a drone worth $1,800 from Bane Welker Equipment for TVHS ag students to use when doing field assessments and other work.
• Heard a report from TVHS junior student representative Jaeda Carpenter on high school activities.

Athletes are starting to practice for winter sports, and students are collecting items to give to people in the community for Thanksgiving meals.

The board’s next meeting is at 6 p.m. Dec. 14 at Mentone, one week earlier than usual in the month.