Superintendents share their initiatives for the 2021-22 school year

Jul. 24—Melissa Brisco

It will be the first full year in our new elementary and high school with the majority of the construction projects completed. We also wrote a grant to partner with Purdue University to implement a design studio at the elementary school. All students will investigate coding, stem and authentic learning opportunities using a curriculum developed by Purdue.

The high school is looking to build off of our state and nationally recognized CNA program and an advanced manufacturing program at the high school. Simply, we're committed to helping develop a K-12 instructional program that allows students to explore their strengths and interests so they're better prepared for life and a career.

Joe Cronk

Our priorities for the 2021-2022 school year are: (1) normalization of school routines, (2) instruction (3) supplemental learning, (4) outreach and (5) staffing. In addition, many of the construction projects from our referendum have been or will be completed by the end of the school year.

Jill Barker

We are very excited for several building updates that have been completed or are currently under construction, including our brand-new track. We have had a very successful track team over the past eight years, but our athletes have not had access to a track.

Our CAP program is expanding to our high school, and we will be able to offer new aerospace opportunities to our students with expanded access to rocketry, drones, RC, fixed-wing and weather balloons. These projects and local partnerships will also help our students who are interested in flight to obtain drone certifications as well as pilot licensure.

Corporation-wide, we have partnered with Magnify Learning to bring true project-based learning to our students which will lead to APA becoming a STEM-certified school.

Greg Roach

We are finalizing several things for our students. These items include providing digital educational programming to assist students in accelerating their learning to fill in the gaps that may have occurred over the last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic; development of new technology/robotics labs in each of our school buildings, including a IN-MaC Lab at Daleville Elementary School and MakerSpace Lab at Daleville High School; and instituting an autism/behavioral therapy program districtwide, including the installation of sensory rooms in each building and staff to lead the program

Joe Brown

We are close to finalizing our strategic plan that we've been working on over the past six months. This includes a long-term facilities plan as well. We are starting the year off with four days of summer professional development for staff focusing on literacy, math and social emotional learning. We've nearly completed most of our summer work including new carpet in most classrooms, resurfacing our track and tennis courts and resealing all of our pavement throughout the district.

Bobby Fields

Our biggest initiative this year is we will be starting a five-year partnership with the Indiana Center on Teacher Quality. We applied and were granted a Rural Implementation Grant to improve educational outcomes for students with disabilities by ensuring their access to high quality instruction in the general education classroom. The rural implementation grant will provide funding for a five-year project to implement Universal Design for Learning and Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.

FLCS will partner with the Indiana Center on Teacher Quality and the Center on Education and Lifelong Learning to provide job-embedded professional growth focused on inclusive, culturally-sustaining Universal Design for Learning. The mission of the Indiana Center on Teacher Quality is to increase the number of high quality teachers serving students with disabilities.

Scott Deetz

Madison-Grant is excited to launch three new virtual academies (K-5, 6-8, 9-12) to students throughout Indiana. Our agriculture program has expanded into agri-business.

Madison-Grant is also launching the "Madison-Grant Primary Health Care Clinic" with its partner Aspire, which is due to open on the M-G campus in September or October.

Ron Green

While our teachers and staff have done a great job teaching during the pandemic, our students still lost out on a lot of instructional time. We will be working hard to ensure the students learn their grade level content, while ensuring that we fill in any gaps from the past year and a half.

We provided an expanded summer school program and plan on offering additional opportunities for intervention and remediation throughout this school year and beyond. It will take some time to catch students up. We are looking at various projects that will improve the overall air quality in our buildings, such as updating HVAC and replacing carpet, where possible.

Mark J. Hall

As a district, we are going to be focused on addressing the learning opportunities that were missed last year due to the pandemic. In addition, our district is also seeing a substantial increase in new home construction. We will be monitoring the impact that that these new housing developments are having on our enrollment and will continue to plan for the anticipated growth that they will bring.

Adam Freeman

Liberty Christian School is committed to creating a Christ-centered community where students will receive an excellent education focused on the whole person that is based on Biblical truth.

We are expanding course offerings in science, technology, English language arts, and mathematics in order to prepare our students for success at the next level. We are excited for our students to engage in a variety of new programming that will help them grow as an individual outside of the classroom. We are confident that our students and families will benefit from the personalized approach to education that we offer

Tina Neal

Our theme at Holy Cross School this coming school year is "Be Courageous. Be Kind." All Holy Cross students will focus on their writing skills this school year as well as all Indiana state standards.

The teaching staff will also get to return to their professional learning communities and collaborate with colleagues as they once did before the pandemic struck. We are glad that we get to return to school activities such as sports, concerts, art shows and field trips.

Follow Rebecca R. Bibbs on Twitter at @RebeccaB_THB, or call 765-640-4883.