District Accreditation Visit

Wawasee Community School Corporation welcomes the Quality Assurance Review team members who will be with us Sunday, October 16-Wednesday, October 19. The team will be visiting schools and talking with teachers, students, parents, administrators, support staff, and other stakeholders.

On Wednesday, October 19, in the Wawasee High School lecture room at 2 p.m., the team will present an exit report to the board of school trustees noting things we are doing well and also giving us some things on which we need to work.

The following team members will be with us:

• Dr. Steve Oborn, lead evaluator, is a former school superintendent.
• Mary Mickelson, vice-chair, is an adjunct instructor at Indiana Wesleyan University.
• Bruce Jennings is principal at Bremen High School.
• Rebecca Vaughan is a sixth grade English teacher at Hebron Middle School.
• Gloria Ritchie is a retired educator from Alexandria, Louisiana.
  

Outstanding Student Achievement

Wawasee Community Schools would like to congratulate the 2011 FFA Horticulture Team for their 1st place finish in the FFA Division of the National Horticulture Judging Contest hosted by the National Junior Horticulture Association. The contest took place October 7 & 8. The National FFA Horticulture Judging Contest Winners are

• Seth Helfers, Junior - 2nd Place Individual
• Jessica Wilson, Senior - 3rd Place Individual
• Kaeli Long, Sophomore - 4th Place Individual
• Zach Bussie, 2011 Graduate - 6th Place Individual

The students are coached by Mariah Roberts, Tammy Helfers, and Randy Warren. Congratulations on a job well done!

Academic Coach Mary Lou Dixon Honored at State

Academic Coach, Mary Lou Dixon was recently honored by the Indiana Association of School Principals (IASP) as a finalist for the 2011 Academic Coach of the Year. Strong academic coaches are an essential part of providing a positive experience for Indiana's students, and the IASP is excited to recognize the contributions of devoted coaches across the state.

Mary Lou, coach for Wawasee High School, was nominated by Elaine Bokhart, coach for Wawasee Middle School and Doug and Heidi Heinisch, parents.

Mary Lou's many accomplishments include, but is not limited to:

• Jr Academic Coach 7 years
• Sr Academic Coach 5 years
• 5 time Academic Super Bowl State Finalist
• 2011 Academic Super Bowl Social Studies State Champion

Winning is not the primary reason Mary Lou works with students at this level. Since retirement, she has missed teaching and encouraging young people to achieve at their highest level. She also enjoys history and wants to share her love of the subjects with the students. The amount of time her students spend studying is astronomical. They meet after school several times a week, and on Saturdays she opens her home so the team can study, have lunch together, and build a team camaraderie that endures. Mrs. Dixon also uses her time to solicit funds from both the school and community to provide the students with the materials they need to study. Mrs. Dixon feeds the students' minds with history and builds self esteem along the way, just as she did for those of us that were privileged to have her as a middle school teacher many years ago. Academic Super Bowl enriches the lives of students that want to push themselves academically, and Mary Lou Dixon is there to help them accomplish their goals.

Congratulations Mary Lou!

Wawasee Schools in YMCA Corporate Challenge

The Wawasee School Corporation had 53 staff participate in the Kosciusko Community YMCA Corporate Challenge during the month of September. The Corporate Challenge is about building morale, developing team work, instilling company pride, promoting company recognition in the community, developing networking opportunities, and providing physical and mental conditioning for the staff. We had staff from all of our corporation schools and the Central Office participate in this challenge. Our staff participated in 22 events. Thirty-four Wawasee staff members participated in the 5K walk/run event! Our team got 5th out of the 7 teams for the Corporate Challenge.

We were also awarded the Spirit Award for the challenge. The Spirit Award criteria was:

• Demonstrating teamwork at events
• Level of representation of company employees at events
• Designing a Tiki torch that represents your company and using this in opening ceremonies
• Team mascot present at the opening ceremonies
• Involvement of Superintendent in at least one event
• Having matching t-shirts at all events
• All members of a team having face painted for at least one event

"I was fortunate to meet and get to know staff in other buildings and develop a network of internal resources through this event. Thank you for the support for our school corporation to participate in this challenge!"

Nancy Boston, North Webster Elementary Physical Education Teacher

Trick-or-Treat for Teachers

4R School is once again collecting much needed supplies for the teachers and students of Milford School. On Monday, October 31st from 6:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m., Milford residents will be going door-to-door 'trick-or-treating' for school supplies. Items they would like to collect are: tape, markers, paper, glue, pencils, stickers and more. If you would like to collect items, stop by Milford 1st Brethren Church for a collection bag. For more information and a complete list of school supplies, please visit the 4R School Facebook page.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

It's that time of year again. Parent/Teacher conferences will be held at all of the Wawasee Schools this week. The schedule is:

• Wawasee High School - Monday, October 3, 3:15 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
• Milford, North Webster, Syracuse - Thursday, October 6, 3:15 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
• Wawasee Middle School - Thursday, October 6, 3:30 p.m. - 7:15 p.m.