By GLEN WERLING
Progress on the Norwell Middle School remodeling, reconstruction project is steaming ahead, members of the Northern Wells Community Schools Board learned Tuesday night.
Eleven days after formally kicking off the project at the middle school, Kent Gilliom from Weigand Construction reported the following to the school board members:
• Foundations have been laid for the south wing of the new school.
• There has been a lot of earthwork, concrete and underground activities accomplished. Underground plumbing and electrical work is now being installed on the south wing.
• All earthwork is done on the loop road but it still needs stone work. The loop road will become the second entrance to the school complex off U.S. 224. Board member Chad Kline asked if the Indiana Department of Transportation has approved the entrance onto the highway. Gilliom replied it has not but they are expecting final approval soon. Once that approval is granted, construction traffic will use it — rather than tracking across the parking lots of the high school and the middle school — as the access to the construction site. Board member Gene Donaghy observed that the a second entrance off the highway should make the entrances to Norwell safer since all traffic to both schools will no longer be funneled through one entrance.
• Masonry work will start on the south wing in a couple weeks.
“It’s really coming along. I think you’re doing a great job,” Springer said.
It should be noted that the formal kickoff actually occurred several months into the construction project.
In other business, the board members approved the following financial compensations for support staff members.
• Maintenance pay will range from $18 to $30 an hour.
• Custodial staff, $18-$26.
• School nurses, $28.50.
• Food service, $15.50 to $20.
• Central office, $20 to $23.
Building offices, $15.50 to $22.50.
• Technology support, $14.50 to $23.
• Teaching assistant, $14.50 to $16.85.
Springer presented the board members with a chart showing how Northern Wells’ pay for support staff compared with the pay for support staffs at Bluffton-Harrison, Southern Wells, North Adams, Adams Central and South Adams and observed it was very favorable. He added that it was important for Northern Wells to stay competitive because there would be no reason for a support staff member to stick with Northern Wells if they could just drive a few extra miles to another school corporation and get paid more.
Springer also updated the school board members on new Indiana Public Law 139, which sets the parameters school districts in the state must follow regarding eLearning schedules and formats.
At Northern Wells, the way eLearning is done now, students are given assignments ahead of time through the learning management system Schoology. They then do those assignments and have a set time in which they are submitted back to the teacher for the student to be counted present for a particular class or student day.
While teachers are accessible for student questions, the instruction is not always live-streamed nor synchronous.
That is changing with PL 139.
Now schools are no longer permitted to have more than three virtual days of less than 50 percent synchronous instruction — meaning livestreamed and teacher-directed.
Springer observed that many Northern Wells teachers were already performing “a lot” of livestreamed or synchronous learning during eLearning days, but not to the extent that they will be doing starting next year.
“But it’s really not going to be that big of a leap for us,” Springer said.
School districts must still maintain 180 days of public instruction — that has not changed, however they may apply for a waiver to change the 180-day requirement to an instructional-minutes requirement. School districts may also seek a waiver to allow for professional development days.
All waivers sought must be submitted to the state by June 5.
Springer recommended that Northern Wells not seek a waiver. “From my prospective I don’t really want us doing that,” he said.
Springer plans to send a letter to parents to let them know of the changes in the state law regarding eLearning. “Within that letter I’m going to give them a survey talking about using targeted and spread out late start days,” Springer said. Late start days are not impacted by changes in the law — if a waiver is not sought — and Springer believed that professional development days are probably more effective and more readily absorbed by certified staff members if the training is delivered in an hour or two session rather than an all-day training.
Making room for professional staff training days are the main reason why many school corporations are seeking a waiver to the new law, Springer observed.
“I think from my prospective teachers like bite-sized professional development rather than full day development. It’s almost information overload,” Springer said. “I think we can abide by the way the law is now.”
Board member Angie Topp asked if the waiver will stay an option in the years to come. Springer believes it will, but he questioned how many waivers the state is actually willing to grant. “The threshold for a waiver is much higher than it used to be,” he observed. “I believe a lot of the waivers will be denied.”
Board president Corey Krug added that seeking a waiver of 180 days to an instructional minutes requirement would make two-hour delays a much less favorable option for school corporations since a delay would subtract from the minutes a school district would amass. Currently a two-hour delay day is still counted as an entire day by the state.
Krug added, “This new law is not something that we wanted to institute, this is a requirement being handed down to us by the state.”
Springer added that eLearning is never the desired delivery method. If eLearning needs to be implemented because of student safety, then he added, it needs to be as close as possible to live instruction and that could be accomplished through synchronous instruction.
“When we first saw this law, it was not a big concern for us because we want to do it this way anyway,” he concluded.
Board members recognized career and technical education teacher Kevin Morris at the outset of Tuesday’s meeting for being one of four CTE teachers statewide to be honored with the Award for Excellence for Outstanding Secondary/Postsecondary CTE Program of Study by the Indiana Office of Career and Technical Education.
glenw@news-banner.com
