Greater Jasper School Board Meeting
Dr. Lorey’s update on REACH
Superintendent Dr. Tracey Lorey gave an update to the board on the new REACH initiative —REACH stand for Rigor, Engagement, Achievement, Collaboration and Holistic. This information helps the school corporation formulate plans on how to attack challenges that face them in educating the Jasper Student population.
“We do have some areas that we need to dig in. We are looking at students who are learning English as a new language,” she said. “We need to look at the programming for those students, ensuring that we’re providing them with the experiences that will help them acquire the language, but also the skills that are needed to pass from one grade level to the next.”
Dr. Lorey said that at the next board meeting, she will present some of the dashboard information that they use to monitor student progress throughout the year.[hr]
Substance Abuse Task Force update
Also in the meeting, Assistant Superintendant Bob Hacker gave an update on three projects.
First Hacker updated the board on the Substance Abuse Task Force and the School’s efforts to address the issue of substance abuse among students at the Middle and High Schools.
Hacker says that they have been through four meetings and have made significant progress.
“We have our first parent education meeting, which we think educating parents is of the utmost importance,” he explained. “We’re lucky to have Miss Jody Richardson coming to talk to parents next Monday at 6:30 pm at the Jasper Middle School auditorium. She’s a former emergency room nurse with Memorial Hospital and she is very current in what is being used in Dubois County.”
Richardson recently completed training with Dubois County law enforcement departments and Hacker feels this will be a very good presentation parents to attend.
Also, Hacker said that the students have come up with two ways to help with the issue. The first is a Safe Schools Hotline which is an anonymous phone line which students can call and leave tips on any information regarding drugs in the schools. The number is 481-4823.
They also suggested the idea of a site to be able to leave similar information, the e-mail address is safety@gjcs.k12.in.us. [hr]
Gymnasium progress
Hacker also gave an update on the gymnasium construction saying that the decking for the roof is in place, but the roof membrane will not be completed until around Christmas.
Project manager Scott Stenftenagel reports that they are still on-schedule and that in the last 30 days, only three have been lost due to inclement weather so they are making good progress. [hr]
New bus tracking software
Hacker says that the new bus route tracking software is being installed and will be fully functional by February 1st after all of the bus routes are entered into the system and they system is synced with the school information system called Power School.
Larger cafeteria
Hacker also requested and was given board approval to purchase just over $18,000.00 in additional tables for the cafeteria. The cafeteria gains 27 feet in the new configuration of the gym and Hacker said that the school needs to take advantage of the additional square footage so that the students can have lunch together at the same time.
