Tippecanoe Valley Middle School Principal Kyle Wieland gives an update on the school to the Tippecanoe Valley School Board at its regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 17. InkFreeNews photo by Leah Sander.

By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

AKRON — Students taking high school courses in middle school and testing results were some of the topics discussed in the Tippecanoe Valley Middle School annual update to the Tippecanoe Valley School Board.

The board heard the information from TVMS Principal Kyle Wieland at its regular meeting at the school on Monday, Feb. 17.

Wieland started out by providing statistics on the current student body and TVMS staff.

“We are a very young building as far as years of experience,” he said.

He noted that “60% of our teachers have 10 years or fewer of experience, but one of our biggest positives to me is that we had zero teachers leave after last year.”

Regarding students, he said, “We’re really close to the same enrollment as we had last year.”

The middle school has 428 students, breaking down to 138 in sixth grade, 146 in seventh grade and 144 in eighth grade.

Wieland added “61% of our students are on free or reduced lunch.” Thirty-seven percent of students are receiving some sort of educational assistance in school, whether that be with language or functional skills.

He noted “92% of our eighth graders will enter high school with at least one high school credit.”

Regarding state testing, Wieland noted he believed Indiana’s switch to having “Checkpoints” was allowing the school to better prepare students for ILEARN as the school was getting feedback on students’ results periodically.

Among extracurricular highlights, Wieland noted TVMS was a Unified Champion School for 2023-24 due to its promotion of students with special needs getting to play sports along with those without special needs. TVMS was also a Riley Children’s Foundation Red Wagon School for the 2023-24 school year due to it raising the equivalent of a least $1 per student for Riley Hospital for Children.

In other business, the board:

• Approved the hiring of Valley Early Learning Academy instructional assistant Brianna Turek and Mentone Elementary School instructional assistant Tracy Vance.
• Approved the termination of Tippecanoe Valley High School head custodian Michelle Hoffman.
• Accepted the resignations of Mentone instructional assistant Kara Loper; TVMS instructional assistants Kora Sloan and Alyssa Evans; TVHS pool manager Deanna Roe and technology associate Cougan White; and Tippecanoe Valley School Corp. Director of Communications, Marketing and Grant Writing Kiira Churchill.
• Heard an update on high school activities from student representative Jacob Scacco. FFA Week is ongoing at the high school, with an appreciation supper and worker auction open to the public on Wednesday, Feb. 19. The supper is at 6 p.m. and the auction at 7 p.m. SAT and midterms are also coming up at the school, and student Gunnar Crispen is also going to a national Jobs for America’s Graduates event and competing in prepared speech.

The board’s next meeting is 6 p.m. Monday, March 17, at TVHS.