Cloverdale board begins new year with election of officers

CLOVERDALE -- With the start of the new year brings new officers and new members for the Cloverdale School Board, which met for its monthly meeting Monday evening.

Nominated by their peers, Donna Fidler will maintain the president's seat with Duane Huge keeping the vice president position as well as Bobbi Nees maintaining the position of secretary.

The board also approved keeping its established board meeting dates and times as the second Monday of the month at 7 p.m. Board members will also continue to receive a total of $2,000 a year for compensation.

Debbie Rollings will remain as the corporation treasurer with Lynn Lotz as her deputy and Ice Miller as the corporation's attorney.

The Cloverdale School Board also welcomed its two new members, Vivian Whitaker and Daniel Hofmann who were elected to fill the vacancies of Brian Asbury and Pamelia Hepfer.

Following elections, the board heard from Old National Trail Education Coordinator Diana Meo, who gave a brief update on the corporation's special needs students.

Meo noted that within the Cloverdale School Corporation, there are a total of 250 students or 25 percent of its students population that fall into one of the 14 exceptionality categories with four having multiple disabilities. Of those 250 students there is one student who has an orthopedic impairment, two that are deaf or hard of hearing, six (full time) students having emotional disabilities, 25 students with emotional disabilities (other or students who need some sort of special help up to 50 percent of their day), 64 having a specific learning disability, 32 (age 3-5) students having a developmental delay, 64 students falling into the language/speech impairment category, 16 students having a mild cognitive disability, two students having a moderate cognitive disability, one student having a severe cognitive disability, 19 students within the autism spectrum disorder category, two students having a traumatic brain injury and 12 students fall into the other health impairment category.

"We're a corporation who serves more than one corporation when it comes to a developmental delay," Meo explained. "We welcome students from other corporations as part of the Old National Trail umbrella."

Meo noted that each student that qualifies for services has an individual education plan. Old National Trail is required by law to meet each of the goals set within that legal and binding document.

"Some are very quick and easy five pages, others can be over 20 pages," Meo explained. "We have to be very careful that we're following everything that we have in that plan."

Meo also stated that Old National Trail is also required by law to meet at least once a year with a student's family to review progress on annual goals as well as develop a new plan if needed.

"Sometimes we'll meet three, four, five or even six times a year especially for students who have emotional disabilities and we're having trouble meeting their needs in the classroom. We'll have to get creative and come up with some alternatives," Meo said. "Other times we'll just meet once a year. We're required by law to meet as often as a parent requests."

Overall, 90 percent of Old National Trail students spend 80 percent of more of their day in the general education classroom. However, there are some who spend are homebound, have attend a separate day school or attend a residential facility.

"We have very few students who spend less than 40 percent of their day within the general education classroom," Meo added. "Currently, we have three full-time teachers at the elementary level, two teachers at the middle school and two teachers at the high school."

Old National Trail also has a number of employees that are based out of Cloverdale, one teacher at the elementary school, one educational coordinator, one school psychologist and two speech language pathologists. The board also heard from Whitaker who gave a brief recap of the 2014 calendar year for the Dollars For Scholars program. To date, the program has awarded more than $285,000 to 351 Cloverdale students in the five years it has existed. It is Whitaker's hope that this number keeps increasing for many years to come.

"Last year, 23 seniors received a total of $26,000 in scholarships," Whitaker explained. "Most of you know our affiliation with Scholarship America. We have 12 matching partners in the state of Indiana, which helped us award another $7,000 to our kids this past year. Last year, we had a student that was going to IUPUI. He received a $3,000 scholarship from us and because he is attending one of our partner schools, that scholarship went up to $5,000 thanks to our association with Scholarship America."

Whitaker also noted that the organization is on its fourth endowment with the Putnam County Community Foundation. This year, Dollars for Scholars will be receiving $12,500, thus at the Feb. 7-8 phone-a-thon, it must raise a matching $12,500.

"We have an individual who is also giving us $12,500," Whitaker added. "In total, that makes a big chunk of change for us and that's how we've been able to grow quickly with our endowments."

Whitaker also shared some exciting news as Dollars for Scholars will now be offering a new scholarship, the Robert Steele Family Award, to Cloverdale students in the name of one of the organizations founders.

"Bob Steele was one of the founders for Dollars for Scholars," Whitaker said. "We have finally convinced Bob, by twisting his arm, that now is the time for us to name a scholarship after him. He started it based on the fact that he needed lunch money, sometimes book money, sometimes money for a pair of shoes and that's how it all came about. We feel like this is a perfect time to name it and we're really excited about it."

Cloverdale students who have previously received a scholarship from the Dollars for Scholars program or any other scholarship along with any Cloverdale graduate is eligible to apply. Those who are looking to apply must maintain a 3.0 grade-point average, have completed one year of school and have a financial need for the scholarship.

"We're looking forward to getting this started," Whitaker said. "We'll have our deadline closer to the end of the college year so we can have their second semester transcripts."

It was also noted that the program will be giving a minimum of 21 scholarships ranging from $500 to $5,000, which is a minimum of $22,250 from the chapter and a minimum of $2,000 from its matching schools fund.

"Anything we can do to help these kids along we want to do that and we want to keep up with the times," Whitaker added.

In other business:

*The board postponed honoring its monthly students of the month due to school being canceled on Friday. Those students will be recognized during the February meeting.

* The board approved the disposal of athletic surplus items.

* The board approved the hiring of Central Elementary teacher Rachel Newton, the resignation of Knoy Resource Center's Toni Tomlinson and the hiring of high school volunteer boys basketball assistant coach Michael Nees.

* Superintendent Greg Linton announced that Cloverdale FFA placed fifth in the national competition this past weekend in Denver, Colo.