South Putnam board approves travel incentive

Thursday, February 20, 2014

There are some exciting things in the works for the students of South Putnam High School as the board approved moving forward with a spring break trip to Europe for its Advanced Placement students.

The South Putnam School Board met for its monthly meeting Tuesday evening and received a quick presentation from staff members Brady Rhodes and Zachary Love about organizing a bi-annual eight-day trip for students enrolled in A.P. U.S. History and Government to both London and Paris.

"Advanced Placement students work extremely hard throughout the school year and are a key piece to our school's academic success," Rhodes and Love said in a statement to the board. "It is our desire to provide an exciting, inspiring and educational reward for all the hard work these students accomplish during the school year."

The idea of the trip is to provide students an opportunity to see and experience the foundations of American history and political thought. It will also allow students to have a valuable cross cultural experience as well as allow for an opportunity to have students see the world and experience the content taught in their courses.

"It is important to study the similarities of the American system of government compared to the British system, to discuss the tyranny and excess of the French monarchy, or learn about famous rulers and political thinkers in England," Rhodes and Love noted. "However, those studies come alive and impact your life when you step into the halls of British Parliament, tour the grounds of Louis XIV's extravagant Versailles palace and walk amongst the graves of Britain's famed thinkers and rules in Westminster Abbey."

The trip will be organized through the internationally recognized company Explorica and is estimated to cost approximately $2,600 per student before fundraising efforts and grant writing, which will be conducted throughout the year.

"I think it's great that you guys have taken it upon yourselves to put this together," board member Angie Nichols said. "A lot of these kids have not been outside Putnam County and I commend you on that. It's just the money, people finding the money to do it."

Students will be accompanied at all times by chaperones and Explorica provides the services of a full-time tour director. The trip will begin on the evening of March 19, 2015 and students will return March 26.

"We're hoping that this trip will be an incentive for students to join AP," Rhodes said. "It's an Advanced Placement trip for U.S. History and AP Government and they take one as a junior and one as a senior. Therefore, every student would have the ability to participate. I think students will be very excited about the opportunity."

The board unanimously approved the trip noting that it may be the only opportunity for many of the corporation's students to take such a trip.

Like all school corporations in the area the number of snow days has been an issue. For South Putnam, the corporation has just one possible snow day left until it must add additional days on to the end of the year.

The Indiana Department of Education recently awarded schools throughout the state a two-day waiver that did not have to be made up following the large January snowfall. However, for some, that is just not enough.

"We're not completely out," Superintendent Bruce Bernhardt said. "As of right now we will be in school from now until gradation except for spring break of course. We have one day left that we could use as a makeup day. We've had a lot of snow. A lot of days that we've had to deal with, I hope that it's over. You're guess is as good as mine if we're done with it or not, but we'll continue to look at it."

As of now, the students' last day will remain as Friday, May 30 with graduation on May 31. However, if there were to be another major snowfall additional dates will have to be looked into.

Bernhardt also updated the board on the status of the corporation's recent count day that occurred on Monday, Feb. 3.

"This year is the first year that the state has changed the way they fund schools for our general fund," Bernhardt explained. "In previous years, we've had a one day count in September and however many students were enrolled we turned that number in to the state ... and that determines how much money you receive."

However, this year the state decided to have two count days, one in September that funds July 1-Dec. 31 and one in February that retroactively funds Jan. 1-July 30.

Having two count days is especially troublesome for those corporations that have declining enrollments, like South Putnam, as it could mean less funding throughout the year. However, this year South Putnam grew by 23.5 students.

"If you're growing from the first one to the second one you're going to get more money. If you're declining from the first one to the second one you're going to lose money," Bernhardt explained. "The good news for us anyway, is that we grew from September to February."

Bernhardt noted that this was also one of the corporation's biggest years of drops in terms of seniors graduating and the amount of kindergarteners coming in. However, the corporation is extremely happy with the results of the count day and hopes the trend will continue.

In other business:

* The board approved the retirements of high school counselor Mark Wildman and Central Elementary teacher Jannette Roberts.

* The board gave Bernhardt permission to approve requests from several organizations pending the proper paperwork being filed for use of the corporation's baseball diamonds.

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