By Jackie Gorski
Times-Union
WARSAW — Stop-arm violations are still a concern to Warsaw Community Schools.
Tracy Horrell, assistant superintendent of secondary education, told the Warsaw School Board Monday the biggest continuing traffic concern is stop-arm violations.
In the past year, the school corporation has had 155 stop-arm violations sent to the Kosciusko County Prosecutor’s Office.
Horrell also talked about the sign on Center Street near Papa John’s warning drivers all vehicles must stop when a bus stops. Horrell said Transportation Director Mark Fick said stop-arm violations at that bus stop have been reduced.
Traffic at the secondary schools is going well, he said. At Madison and Jefferson elementary schools, cars for parent drop-off and pick-up of students are sometimes parked along the road.
Later in the meeting, Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert showed the preliminary video of his State of the School address.
In the video, Hoffert states WCS has 1,200 employees, which makes the school corporation the third largest employer in the county. Bus drivers travel over 13,000 miles every day to pick up and drop off students. WCS has one of the lowest tax rates in the state.
WCS has a graduation rate of over 96%, which means it has one the highest graduation rates in Indiana, he said.
Within the school corporation, the two big items are STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and Dual Language Immersion. There are four STEM-certified schools and two DLI schools.
Hoffert said WCS’ other focuses are math and reading skills, especially at the elementary school, making sure they help struggling readers at “that lower academic level.”
Over the past couple years, Hoffert said WCS has helped the teaching staff get over 100 advanced degrees. The school corporation also helped get nonteaching staff with transition-to-teaching degrees.
In other the business, the board:
• Heard from Dave Bailey, principal of Gateway Educational Center, about how his first week-and-a-half as principal has gone. Bailey was approved to the principal’s position at the Feb. 7 work session.
• Heard from Matt Deeds, principal of Harrison Elementary School, who introduced fifth-grader Dhanishka Sudarsan, winner of the 2023 Kosciusko County Spelling Bee.
• Approved an updated 2023-24 school calendar.
On Feb. 7, Chief Technology and Analytics Officer Kyle Carter told the board elementary school parent-teacher conferences fall within fall break. As a result of that, it impacts some families’ ability to attend the conferences or families will try to schedule for a different time for the conferences. As a result of that, there will be adjustments on the fall break to make it a full week
Monday, Carter said for 2023-24, the first day of school for elementary students will be Aug. 11, with the last day being May 24.
