Area 30 interlocal agreement need addressed

About two-and-a-half years after approving amendments concerning funding, needed signatures will now be put to Area 30 Career Center’s interlocal agreement.

Executive Director Chad Nunley informed the Area 30 board of directors on Tuesday that the president and secretary of each sending corporation’s school board have to sign the agreement and have it notarized.

“With the new policy of supplying those and uploading those interlocals to the state, we thought it’d be best to do that actually,” Nunley provided.

Each of the superintendents indicated that they would take the agreement to their school boards for approval, though Nunley suggested this was not necessary. They also agreed that signatures from the Area 30 Board would be a safe redundancy.

The board itself approved the amended interlocal agreement in June 2021. Specifically, language was added to reflect Area 30’s budgeting being based on average daily membership (ADM) for each corporation’s financial contribution.

Previously, each corporation’s contribution was based on actual 10th- and 11th-grade enrollment at Area 30.

The model was adopted with the aim of fostering long-term financial commitments, as well as encouraging each corporation to meet a target number of students.

In other business:

• The board approved a draft of Area 30’s calendar for the 2024-25 school year. Nunley noted that its start date will be Aug. 7, as all five of its sending school corporations will have begun by that point.

“It works well for us to be able to start all of our students on the same day, since 60-plus percent of our students have never been here before,” Nunley said.

Nunley added that Area 30 will be in session for different professional development and parent-teacher conference days, including April 18 when only Greencastle and North Putnam will be in session.

With Asst. Director Sharon Bone and North Putnam Supt. Dustin LeMay absent, Treasurer Cindy Burnham joined Nunley and the board for the meeting.

The next regular meeting of the Area 30 Board is set for Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 9 a.m. in the Old National Trail conference room.