Area 30 board starts new year off on right foot

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

The Area 30 Career Center met for its first meeting of the new year on Tuesday morning, in which it addressed several lingering issues from the past few months.

Like many of the area schools, the board approved Area 30's 2014-15 school calendar, which is similar to that of other area corporations.

"There was some differences in all of your calendars," Executive Director Lora Busch noted. "We did our best to try and meet in the middle."

Area 30 students will be starting on Friday, Aug. 8 and ending on Wednesday, May 27. Students will also have a weeklong fall break in October, which aligns with other area schools.

Busch also gave board members additional information regarding the new high school equivalency test.

The new exam, which will take the place of the GED, is a comprehensive test developed by CTB/McGraw-Hill and will still result in the Indiana High School Equivalency Diploma through math, reading, writing, science and social studies assessments.

Although similar, the new exam will show Indiana High School Equivalency test scores on transcripts, it will be a better indicator of a student's readiness for college or career and the rigor of the test will gradually align to the College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Education.

With nearly the entire state being affected by the snow, the board also discussed filing a waiver with the Indiana Department of Education in hopes of getting many of the snow days covered.

All school corporations have until June 1 to file and it is likely that many of the area schools will ask for the entire week to be covered, as Putnam County was under a red restriction for more than half the week.

All but Greencastle, which already filed its waiver, have chosen to wait until after the snow season is over.

Closing out the meeting, Busch informed the board that the Ivy Tech Greencastle site would no longer be a part of the Wabash Valley Ivy Tech region.

"The site will now be a part of the Central Indiana Ivy Tech region," Busch said. "Area 30 has not been formally notified of these changes, but this information has been reported in the news."

Busch informed the board that she is seeking further information regarding the impact it may have on area students and likely will have an update during the February meeting.

The next Area 30 Board meeting will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 9 a.m.

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