Kokomo Tribune's top 5 education stories for 2022

Dec. 22—The calendar year started off in the dead of winter, a time-honored tradition.

The dead of winter also tends to be peak illness season. Area schools felt the full brunt as COVID, other illnesses and staff shortages forced some area schools to go online for a few days in January.

It didn't last long, but experts say disruptions in a child's routine negatively impacts their mental health.

As the weather turned, school-related events returned, such as Eastern's hunter's education day at the Izaak Walton League and the Howard County Music Festival.

New events were established, too.

A basketball tournament broke out at Taylor High School in March that raised money for a student with cancer. The event was such a hit, it will probably end up being an annual thing.

A group of dads at Tipton and Western found value in early morning conversations with their kids.

Throughout the school year, educators took aim at learning loss and helping kids catch back up. Kokomo schools celebrated success at three of its once-most-struggling schools.

The fall saw plenty of marching band success and construction delays.

November brought more school board candidates than in recent memory and the resurgence of Taylor's Community Thanksgiving Dinner.

2022 was chock full of local education stories. Here are the Kokomo Tribune's top five for the year.

School board races: renewed interest, more candidates

School boards took center stage during the November midterms as dozens of people ran to represent their school districts.

Nowhere was this truer than in Kokomo, where 12 people ran for three seats on the school board.

Pitted against 10 challengers, the two incumbents — Lisa Ellison and Lisa Hemmeger — fared differently.

Ellison, a former teacher, was the top vote-getter, retaining her seat. Hemmeger was edged out by newcomer Issac White by eight votes.

Nicole Fain Mundy was also elected to the board. The former Kokomo Teachers Association president made supporting teachers a focal point of her campaign.

"I think looking at the results, it's clear people still trust our teachers," Mundy said in November.

Thirty-one people ran for school board in Howard County.

It was much of the same in Miami and Tipton counties. Both Peru and Maconaquah had contested races, as did Tipton and Tri-Central.

All nine area school boards will have at least one new member.

Some races went down to the wire.

Western School Board incumbent Jill Newby narrowly hung on to her seat, winning reelection by less than 100 votes over Dean Leicht.

Leicht had the lead for most of the evening while vote totals were counted.

"I was sweating it out, I would say," Newby told the Tribune on election night. "I just didn't know. I feel very fortunate that I squeaked it out."

Joey Dyer won a seat on the Western School Board by less than 100 votes.

New board members will take their seats in January.

School construction projects face delays

Kokomo schools announced in March its plans to build a standalone swim facility at the high school campus. The aquatics center will replace the pool in the high school.

Plans include a zero-entryway pool, more swimming lanes and seating capacity, and separate entrances for swimmers and spectators.

The school board delayed the bid process this fall in hopes that construction prices would come down.

Bids were taken in November and came in over budget. Kokomo schools is aiming to spend not more than $22 million, the max the school corporation can take on in debt without raising the tax rate.

The project is shelved until sometime next year.

There's also the high school softball stadium at Kokomo High School.

The contractor, Zionsville-based RL Turner, has paused the project multiple times due to lack of materials, specifically concrete.

A lack of concrete has impeded the completion of other areas of the stadium. For example, the materials for a concession stand have been procured, but it cannot be built until a concrete base is poured.

A campus-wide project at Northwestern worth $51 million is expected to take longer than expected, due to delays with ordering materials, supply chains and construction.

Depending on the material, a year's wait time is not uncommon.

Improvements include secured entrances, adding windows to the high school cafeteria, renovations of classrooms for career and technical classes, improving traffic flow at Howard Elementary and the main campus and adding additional classrooms to accommodate moving sixth graders to the middle school.

Ongoing construction projects at Tipton schools have also faced delays.

A multimillion-dollar, multi-phase upgrade to Tipton schools has dragged on due to supply chain delays. A greenhouse project took longer than expected, too.

Modernizing science classrooms, a new robotics lab and more prominent entrances at all three school buildings are part of the school facilities project, as well as a turf football field and new tennis courts.

A new entrance at Tri-Central Elementary announced in 2021 that did not begin until this year has also had hiccups.

One school that hasn't faced delays is Eastern.

A new fieldhouse and overhaul of the pool at the high school are either complete or on schedule to be finished by early 2023.

The fieldhouse will have three basketball courts, a three-lane track plus locker room space.

Development at Eastern's athletic complex on the southeast end of Greentown is also on track.

Student mental health: an ongoing crisis

Mental health problems among students were prevalent before the pandemic. The disruptions, stress and losses caused by the pandemic only exacerbated those mental health issues, like anxiety and depression.

Janet McManus, a high school counselor at Maconaquah, told the Tribune in January other students had trouble going from being isolated every day with online learning to the constant social interactions of a normal school day.

Add on top of that the expectations of a regular school day, fixed schedule, assignments, etc.

A lack of routine also ramps up the stress. Disruptions in routine — online one week, in person the next — took a toll on students.

The inability to control actions, emotions and thoughts is one of the most prevalent ways those issues present themselves in students.

Schools have worked this year to teach kids healthy coping skills, give them spaces to cool down or burn off steam, while also helping parents alleviate some of their own challenges.

Northwestern and Tipton schools have designated rooms students can spend time in to make getting through the school day a little easier.

Northwestern Elementary's sensory room features a rock-climbing wall, trapeze bar, bean bags and other activities, depending on if a student needs more stimulation or to calm down.

At Tipton Middle School, a calming room has led to fewer kids being sent home due to behavior.

"It helps those kids that are so overwhelmed to refocus," said Gena Schultz, former student services advisor and director of Tipton's My Closet.

Students at Maconaquah learn to identify what triggers strong emotions and how to overcome a potential outburst. For example, instead of yelling, a student learns to walk away.

Breathing, counting, coloring and meditation are some ways students learn how to gather themselves if they are feeling stressed or overwhelmed.

Past traumatic experiences shape how children respond to stressors. Since a child's brain is still developing, experts say it's on adults to help them handle trauma.

Unfortunately, many adults have poor coping skills and have their own mental health issues.

Poverty underlines a lot of those struggles, according to Laura Fulton, principal at Pipe Creek.

Maconaquah hired two social workers to help connect parents to resources in the community, including for food, utilities, family doctors and organizations such as the Lions Club and United Way.

All the right notes

It was a banner year for area high school bands in more ways than one.

In the most literal sense, Kokomo and Maconaquah won state titles.

The Marching Wildkats had been to Indianapolis State Fair Band Day before with decent success — plenty of top five finishes, a couple second place finishes.

The band put it all together this summer, capturing a state title with its performance "El Toro Bravo (the wild bull)."

It takes two performances to win state band day. The first has to be good enough to get called back for an evening performance.

"After the day show, I said, 'I think we're going to get it,'" band member Liliana de la Cruz-Garcia said in August.

Maconaquah repeated as Scholastic B state champions in October. The scholastic level is based on band size, not school enrollment.

Band director James Byrn challenged his young band with a tougher show in 2022, and the kids delivered.

The Eastern Comet Command made a scholastic state finals appearance with a new band director.

Andrew Sloniker was hired two weeks after summer band camp was supposed to start. That didn't slow down the band, though.

"We've had to do more in less time than everyone else," Alli DeYoung, drum major, said in October. "I think it speaks to the band's character and perseverance."

The bands at Northwestern and Western found themselves in a familiar position come November: at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Northwestern finished tied for fifth in its class, its highest ever finish at the Indiana State Music Association State Finals. Western finished third, led by first-year director Stephan Garber.

Turnaround success

Student proficiency on the English portion of ILEARN is up 8% at Pettit Park since 2019. At Bon Air Middle School, it's up 6% over the same time frame.

These two schools, along with Bon Air Elementary, were once flagged by the state for low test scores and accountability grades. A five-year school improvement plan, along with $6 million in grants, was approved in 2018, creating what is called the transformation zone.

The school year starts earlier at Pettit Park and the Bon Air schools, and the school days are up to 40 minutes longer.

The additional time is used to help students who need more practice on certain concepts and help other students build on the skills they've mastered.

Staff implemented a number of systems to track student progress, teachers peer review one another in the classroom, and processes are constantly fine tuned.

Those practices, and the countless hours of planning, have paid off.

Less than 19% of students at the Bon Air Middle School scored proficient or better on the English/language arts portion of ILEARN in 2021. This year, more than 24% of students passed.

"We were expecting to grow, and were super excited when the scores came in," said Amanda Landrum, principal at Bon Air Middle School. "The systems we have here are doing exactly what we expected them to do."

Spencer Durham can be reached at 765-454-8598, by email at spencer.durham@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @Durham_KT.