The Wawascene was created by Dr. Mark Stock, former Superintendent of the Wawasee Community School Corporation. Due to its local popularity, Dr. Stock has left the blog site to future Wawasee administrators.

Blog Rules

Comments should be respectful and pertain to the topic posted. Comments about personnel matters should be made directly to the administrators responsible. Blog moderators reserve the right to remove any comment determined not in keeping with these guidelines.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Enchanted Hills Community Center Summer School Opportunity

Bowen Center's Enchanted Hills Community Center in partnership with Wawasee Community Schools is trying to sponsor a summer school program. At this time, there are not enough students committed to attending to actually run the program. If your child is going to be in grade four through grade eight during the 2009-2010 school year, and you are interested in your child participating in this program, please contact the community center (260-856-2136) or WCSC's central office (574-457-3188). A minimum of 20 students must be signed up with a maximum of 25 students able to participate.

The program will run Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m.-noon beginning July 19 and going through August 15 at the Enchanted Hills Community Center. The focus of the program is to work in teams using LEGO robotics to work on math, science, and language arts skills.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

WHS Class Reunion for Class of 1979

The 30-year class reunion for the Class of 1979 will occur on August 15 at 7:00pm at the South Shore Golf Course Clubhouse. Contact Phil Beer at 317-965-9159, at 380 East 226th Street, Sheridan, IN 46069, pbeer@usiconsultants.com.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Report on May 12 Meeting of Board of School Trustees

In “Good News” Dr. Edington recognized senior Paige Geer for her involvement with the KYLA organization and senior Jayna Winegarden with her KEYS organization involvement.


Allen Coblentz and student representatives of the super mileage car did a presentation of the process of making the car as well as the competition in Indianapolis. There was a short break in the meeting to view the car and ask any additional questions.


Mrs. Rebecca Linnemeier moved to accept the AP U.S. History Class Trip donations of $100 from Biomet, $250 from Zimmer, and $300 from The Papers. The motion also included accepting the donation from the Kosciusko County REMC for Vocal Motion performance at the annual REMC meeting. Mrs. Mary Lou Dixon seconded the motion. The motion carried 5-0.

Mr. Dallas Winchester moved to accept the grouped action items, and Mrs. Mary Lou Dixon seconded the motion. The motion carried 5-0. Included in the grouped action items were the minutes of the April 21, 2009, regular school board meeting, certified personnel recommendations including the retirement of Randy Warren, and claims dated April 1 – 30, 2009.

An Academy report was given by Mrs. Anne Rackley, Academy Director. Many students have benefited from the Academy and they are making great strides to encourage students to complete their high school education.

Dr. Bob Cockburn presented the stat of the month on sub groups in ISTEP testing.

Mrs. Mary Lou Dixon moved and Mrs. Rebecca Linnemeier seconded the motion to accept the additional action items. The motion carried 5-0. Additional action items included: April 2009 financial report, approval of handbook changes as presented, and approval of the Performance Services, Inc. contract subject to the changes presented by school attorney David Cates.

Dr. Edington’s superintendent report started by thanking school attorney David Cates and Milford principal Cindy Kaiser and the handling of a court situation involving a Milford student. He thanked them for keeping the focus on education of children. He also noted that the bomb scare at WHS for May 11th was handled very well by the administration and staff. Notification of modifications to law enforcement, parents, and media was well done. All students as well as staff entered the building through the front doors of the building. Summer projects will begin soon. Some will start before the end of the school year, but will be during second shift. Dr. Edington noted the passing of WMS head custodian, Dave Welker. He will certainly be missed. Finally, the WHS social studies academic super bowl team placed 4th at the state meet. Mrs. Mary Lou Dixon was the social studies super bowl coach.

Mrs. Joy Goshert, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, started her report with comments about the PPL 221 handout included in the board packet. Mrs. Goshert and Mrs. Wendy Hite, Director of Special Services, briefly explained how they plan to use the ARRA funds (stimulus funds) for special services as well as Title I. Mrs. Goshert noted that the corporation plans to continue next year as they have this year with full day kindergarten. One change is that they will be doing kindergarten screening in the spring so that parents will know sooner whether or not their students will be enrolled in full-day kindergarten. The 2009-2010 school calendar has not been finalized, but with no staff development and parent teacher conferences being scheduled, this does make for a very clean calendar. The calendar committee is going to meet again on May 13th to finalize the calendar.

The NEOLA board policy revisions were presented to the board for a first reading.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

ISTEP+ Review Process

If you recall, many of our state's teachers and parents expressed concern over the spring ISTEP+ test.

Dr. Tony Bennett, superintendent of public instruction for Indiana, had members of his staff along with representatives of the testing vendor and more that 160 teachers conduct a comprehensive review of the spring ISTEP+ exam. The results of that comprehensive review were released on May 29, 2009.

Dr. Bennett states, "Although across all grade levels and four separate content areas, less than 2.5% of questions were determined to be substantially out of alignment, I and my staff understand the tolerance for error in high stakes testing is zero. I share your disappointment that even a single item was out of alignment, but am gratified that the responsive action will be swift and significant and, most notably, that student scores will not be affected as a result of the misaligned items."

To read all of the information released by Dr. Bennett regarding the comprehensive review, please click here. Click here for a breakdown by grade level and subject for all of the items reviewed.