WCS Board of Trustees discussed several topics, including a donation to the Boomerang Backpacks program, during a meeting Tuesday, Dec. 10. InkFreeNews photo by Liz Shepherd.

WARSAW — Warsaw Community Schools’ Board of Trustees discussed donations from the Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club and the approval of a new school zone light at Husky Trail during a meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 10.

During a safety presentation to the board, Chief Analytics Officer Shelly Wilfong said the Warsaw Traffic Safety Commission approved plans for the installation of a new school zone light in the area of Husky Trail, near Harrison Elementary School.

“That will be installed soon,” said Wilfong. “And that will include flashing lights in the morning and after school. It will also have a speed sign so people will know how fast they’re going in that school zone. It’ll be installed soon, but we don’t have any set timeline on when that will be yet.”

The city and school have been working to add more precautions along Husky Trail after a young boy was hit and killed last summer while crossing the street in front of Harrison Elementary.

Board Member Mike Coon asked Wilfong about trends in data from Securly, the school corporation’s web filtering and student safety platform. Securly detects online messages or searches related to self-harm, grief, violence and bullying. All of the statistics are presented monthly to the school board.

“As we get closer to the holidays, we see all of these numbers increase,” said Chief Technology Officer Brad Hagg. “Every single one of these is one we get notified of. They come to me, they go to Dr. Hoffert and they go to Dr. (David) Robertson. And we then take that information and get it to the building principals and school counselors.”

In other business, Tracey Akers, Boomerang Backpacks coordinator; and Pam Galloway, Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club, were present at the school board meeting. The Optimist Club recently donated $5,000 to the Boomerang Backpacks program and also donated $1,000 to Back to the Days of Kosciusko County.

“This is the eighth full school year that we have worked the Boomerang Backpacks program,” said Akers. “We currently are distributing backpacks every week to 450 students at six of our eight elementary schools. It’s a definite need. At the beginning of the school year, we were down about $18,000 from previous years for donations. That kind of made me a little nervous. But we sent a letter to the Optimists and said we could use some money if they would be willing to help. When I found out they said yes, I think I did a little happy dance and was very excited to know that they were willing to support this. We are so glad to help students meet a physical need so that they can become better physically, mentally and can become better learners.”

The WCS Board of Trustees also informed the public that the finalized 2019-20 and 2020-21 Warsaw Community School calendars can be found on the WCS website. Warsaw Community Schools is issuing a survey to evaluate potential calendars for the 2021-22 school year. The two calendar options being reviewed include a mirror image of the current calendar and an option with extended breaks throughout the year. Both calendars must meet the state-mandated 180 student instructional days. The survey is set to open sometime in January.

Those interested in taking the survey can click here when the survey goes live in January after the holiday break.