Preschool program to open at Fillmore

After months of preparation, the South Putnam School Board moved to approve a preschool readiness program for the 2013-14 school year during its monthly meeting Monday evening.

Fillmore Principal Brad Hayes again came before the board to discuss the final program overview of the preschool, which will be available to kindergarten-bound four--year-olds in the South Putnam school district.

To be eligible for the preschool, a student must be potty-trained prior to the first day of school. The class will be limited to 20 students, however opportunities will be made available for those out of the corporation to apply if space is available.

The half-day program, which will be housed at Fillmore Elementary School, will run from 7:45-10:45 a.m. with a cost of $50 per week.

"Students will be provided with learning experiences using the Indiana Academic Standards for Young Children," Hayes said. "Activities will focus on kindergarten readiness skills, social skills and motor skills."

Registration forms for the program are now available on the South Putnam website, sputnam.k12.in.us. All forms along with a $50 deposit must be hand delivered to Fillmore Elementary School by June 4. School hours are Monday-Friday 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

It was also noted that this program is a regular student preschool. A special education preschool is available, through a Cloverdale and South Putnam co-op.

A minimum of 15 students must register to have the class. Parents will be notified by mid-June with further details.

The building project was again discussed as the corporation received bids for the skin project on the outside of the building. The board approved to go with 3D Professional Contracting Inc. for a total of $387,000.

The contractor will have 110 days to complete the project.

Finally, South Putnam Superintendent Bruce Bernhardt addressed the issues with the ISTEP testing, which were experienced all over the state of Indiana.

Bernhardt stated that testing was a major problem this year due to a large amount of students being kicked off the server and being forced to restart their test. Some students also had trouble logging into the test as well as getting stuck at the end of the test and couldn't close out of it.

"The best way I can politely say this is that ISTEP was a major problem this year," Bernhardt explained. "We certainly had our share of them (problems) early on. There is no question in my mind that our students were affected by this."

Bernhardt described the ISTEP as a high-stakes test that determines letter grades for school buildings, corporation letter grades and teachers' salary levels.

"The plan of action is CTB McGraw Hill will be doing some evaluation studies," Bernhardt said. "I can't tell you exactly what they're going to do. I think they're going to try to limit the effect the test scores will have. I don't believe we were one of the worst ones in the state."

Bernhardt went on to say that this was a systems wide CTB McGraw-Hill problem that should not have happened and it was very unfortunate that on a high-stakes test that these types of things had to happen.

As the school year comes to a close, the South Putnam School Board went over some routine issues, which are dealt with on an annual basis.

* The board once again approved to go with the Educational Services Company for its budget consulting, it adopted the elementary school handbooks, as well as adopting Pearson Reading Street for kindergarten through grade six.

* The board also approved the purchase of two buses through MidWest Bus Corp. This year the corporation will purchase one handicapped bus as well as a 72-passenger bus for a total of $189,329.

* Three students were also approved as seven-semester graduates, Hunter Barr, Emmalie Beaman and Destiny Tomasino.

* The board also approved the following personnel items: The resignations of Nick White as high school custodian and Chris Jones as a high school teacher, varsity softball coach, assistant football coach and assistant boys' varsity basketball coach; the retirement of Central Elementary School teacher JoAnne Carter; the hiring of Kymberlee Lyell as a middle school math teacher and Roger Perkins as Fillmore Elementary custodian.

* The following summer employees were also approved: Nancy Knapp and Tanner Barr as bus workers, Tona Gardner as high school night school supervisor, Kelly Urton as computer lab registration worker and Traci Boyce and Hilarie Pistelli as high school summer office help.