Skip to main content

School board opposes bills

The Huntington County Community School Corporation (HCCSC) board of trustees passed a resolution Monday night, March 8, during their regular meeting, condemning “the establishment of education scholarship accounts and the expansion of the Indiana choice scholarship program as proposed by members of Indiana’s General Assembly in House Bill 1005 and Senate Bill 412.”
HCCSC Superintendent Chad Daugherty said his request for the board’s approval for the resolution is “a vote of confidence” for the corporation’s teachers.

According to the resolution, “education savings accounts give parents a portion of per-pupil state funding to spend like a taxpayer-funded debit card on education products and services, including private school tuition, unregulated home schools, and tutoring … and, the expansion of the Indiana school choice scholarship program would direct additional resources to non-public schools that are not held accountable to taxpayers for the use of public funds.”

The resolution passed unanimously.

HCCSC Business Manager Scott Bumgardner presented for information, to the board and the community, explaining, last year the state set the expectation that schools would transfer no more than 15 percent from their education fund to their operation, or other, funds.

“We are on the list of those that transferred more than the 15 percent,” he explained.

He says a notice will be posted on the HCCSC website, hccsc.k12.in.us, and then the corporation will respond to the state with reasoning for the overage.

He says the finger can be pointed to several causes for this, including, “One-fifth to one-sixth of HCCSC’s operations fund is not received due to property tax caps, we transfer from our education fund to our teacher retirement fund, and finally, we do not run our funds into the negative.”

“Am I concerned?” he continued, “Not at all. We are very fiscally sound.”

In other business, Daugherty said in his COVID-19 update, 199 students and 81 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 so far this school year. Currently, nine staff members and 143 students are quarantined.

Also during the meeting, a handful of summer school standards were set in place with the board’s approval.

They are as follows:

• The first session of summer school for Huntington North High School (HNHS) will be held June 2 to 25. The second session is to be held July 5 to 28. The hours for both sessions will be 8 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

• Tentative dates for the elementary school summer school are June 1 to June 18 – three hours per day, for three weeks. Benchmark data and teacher recommendation will determine if an elementary student will need to attend summer school. Also, virtual students in K-3 who were not successful in completing assignments and attending on a daily basis during virtual schooling the past school year will need to enroll in summer school in 2021.

• Summer band was approved, with James Court as the Riverview Middle School director; Doug McElhaney as the Crestview Middle School director; and a director and assistant director were approved for HNHS.

• A summer school option was also approved for English Language Learner Students. The high school and elementary school summer schools will have an EL resource available.

• A Migrant Regional Education Service Center will host a migrant summer program at Salamonie Elementary School. The migrant summer school will be held June 7 to July 9 (except July 5). Last year, the MRSC served 11 counties virtually.

• Kinder Kamp will be held July 19 to July 30 at every elementary school in HCCSC. Children who will attend kindergarten in the fall may attend the camp.

In other business:

Several updates were made to the elementary, middle and high school handbooks, ranging from transportation routine changes to pandemic scenarios. The full list of changes can be found by visiting the school board’s tab at the corporation’s website.

The board approved an agreement between the school corporation and the University of St. Francis to allow students to participate in clinical and practicum experience in health-related programs such as the CNA program at The Learning Center.

A five-year agreement was approved with Parkview Hospital to give work-based learning experience at the local hospital in the medical field.

A stipend was approved for CPR training.

A full-time assistant music director was approved for HNHS. The individual employed for this position will teach Marching Band I, Percussion Ensemble, Viking Chorale, Varsity Singers, Viking Volume, Symphonic Band and Concert Band.

A “reduction in force” was approved for five certified positions. Daugherty says there are several retirements in line at the high school, and rather than replace those positions, they will be absorbed, as enrollment at the high school is down to 1,400 students.