Cloverdale School Board gives blessing for Costa Rica trip

CLOVERDALE — With more than a dozen signed up now, an immersive tour of major landmarks in Costa Rica is becoming a reality for students at Cloverdale High School.

The Cloverdale School Board gave its blessing to plan further for the trip Monday evening after a presentation provided by agriculture teacher Heather Clingan.

Clingan first noted that a call-out meeting for potentially interested students was held on Jan. 31, in which 50 people attended. Twenty-six sophomores and juniors have essentially committed to going, with 30 having been the goal overall.

The trip would be facilitated through EF Educational Tours, and has worked with programs at Greencastle, North Putnam and South Putnam. Clingan said Cloverdale was brought on board after being contacted by Brady Rhodes, a former South Putnam educator and now EF’s regional manager for Indiana.

The eight-day trip would be based in the areas of Monteverde, San José and Sarapiqui, as well as the Arenal region. Activities would include visiting a coffee plantation, the Santa Elena Cloud Forest and Braulio Carrillo National Park, as well as cultural exchanges and other opportunities.

The trip would be overseen by a tour director who is a local, as well as chaperones and Clingan as its group leader. Students would be responsible for passports, baggage fees, tips for guides and bus drivers and extra food apart from meals.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to offer to high school students,” Clingan said.

The trip would be set for March of next year, so that students could work toward covering their associated costs. Principal Sonny Stolz provided that Costa Rica is considered its most economical trip to begin building Cloverdale’s relationship with the company.

“I think this is a great experience for anybody,” Board President Vivian Whitaker commented.

While the board gave its blessing for Clingan and Stoltz to continue preparing for the trip, a formal approval for it is expected at its regular meeting next month.

In other business:

• The board approved disposing of computers which do not work or are unable to support Chrome software. Supt. Greg Linton noted that the corporation has a contract with a technology company to do so.

With a large contingent in attendance, the board also recognized Cloverdale School’s Students of the Month: Haislee Nees (Cloverdale Elementary School), Brylie Minnick (Cloverdale Middle School) and Alex Baker (Cloverdale High School).

Because they could not attend the board’s meeting last month, Wyatt Allen and Kenwood Ramsey were also recognized as the January Students of the Month for Cloverdale Elementary and Cloverdale Middle School, respectively.

The board in turn recognized the Teachers of the Month with Sandi Price (Cloverdale Elementary School), Megan Schroeder (Cloverdale Middle School) and Julie Dix (Cloverdale High School).

The board also approved the following personnel report:

• Retirement: Joanna Crum - Cloverdale Elementary physical education/music teacher; and

• Employment: Nicole Campbell - CHS guidance counselor; Aleksey Green - CMS girls’ track coach; and Angela Ladd - CMS boys’ track coach.

The rest of the board joined Whitaker and Linton for the meeting.

The next regular meeting of the Cloverdale School Board is set for Monday, March 13 at 7 p.m. in the Arthur L. Johnson Administration Office near Cloverdale High School.