Academic exchange

Someday international exchange students may be able to graduate from Jay County High School with a dual diploma.
The Jay School Board adopted the dual diploma as one of its goals Monday while hosting an educational exchange group from Anshan, China.
“The world is shrinking,” Zhang Shilian, principal of Anshan Angang Senior High School, told the board, noting that more than 100 people have taken part in exchange programs between Jay County and Anshan in recent years.
“Our friendship is growing deeper and deeper … I’m looking forward to a broadened exchange.”
A dual diploma would be helpful to Chinese students seeking to attend college in the U.S.
Superintendent Tim Long said the Indiana Department of Education has given its okay to the outline for the program, which is still being developed. Approval of the goal came on a 6-0 vote, with board president Greg Wellman absent.
Six groups have come from China on exchange programs to Jay Schools, while five local groups have traveled to Anshan as part of the exchange.
Anshan, located in Liaoning Province in northeastern China, has a population of more than 3 million.
Zhang, said Long, “is one of the finest, toughest, most compassionate people you’ll meet.” He has been Long’s primary counterpart during the development of the exchange program as part of the school corporation’s international initiative.
Also taking part in the latest exchange are a teacher, a surgeon who is also principal of a medical high school, and the artist Wang Dengke, whose works are on display at Arts Place this week.
The exhibit, which runs through Friday, is Wang’s first in the U.S, though he has an international reputation as a scholar, artist, and calligrapher.
Board members learned Monday state support for Jay Schools will be down about $346,000 because of a drop of 138 in average daily enrollment. Business manager Brad DeRome also noted that reimbursements for full-day kindergarten and summer school are expected to be the same as in 2012.
“It’s early,” Long said of the school’s finances for the year ahead.
On Long’s recommendation, the board approved a “modified RISE” evaluation plan for teachers and administrators.
“We have a better product that we had when we started,” said Jeremy Gulley, evaluation coordinator for JCHS. “We will revise and review and learn from the implementation.”
Gulley noted that one key revision to the RISE system involved changing the metrics so that student performance counts as the same portion of evaluation for both teachers and administrators.
Board members were unanimous in approving the purchase of a cargo van for $23,922.67 and a box truck for $29,329.35 from Sam Swope Auto Group, Louisville, Ky., and a pick-up truck for $26,866 from Kenny Vice Ford, Ladoga.
DeRome noted that the Internet probably played a role in why the vendors came from such distant locations. Public notice advertising in The Commercial Review is automatically posted on The CR’s website at no additional charge to the school corporation.
In other business, the board:
•Approved participating again this year in a federally-funded summer lunch program. The program will run from June 3 to July 19. Sites include Pennville Elementary School, Westlawn Elementary School, Judge Haynes Elementary School, Redkey Elementary School, General Shanks Elementary School, Jay County Public Library, and the Jay Community Center.
•Adopted several new goals that have grown out of discussions in work sessions with an outside consultant. Those include: Creating a virtual option for senior year, evaluating digital learning, a balanced budget, maintaining a $3 million general fund balance, implementing the evaluation program, long-term succession management, new teacher mentoring, meeting with community stakeholders, continued examination of facilities security, exploring new teacher training programs, expanding vocational opportunities, becoming a “master board,” adopting a compensation model and updating the technology plan.
•Received a report on Jay Schools vehicles that are driven home each night from DeRome that shows 38 buses, one vehicle for the transportation director, and five maintenance vehicles are driven back-and-forth to work by employees.
•Was introduced to Cynthia Hiatt, a graduate student working on her doctorate in education who will be interning with Long in the months ahead.
•Accepted the retirement resignation of school psychologist Denise Janak effective at the end of the school year.
•Approved leaves of absence for second grade teacher Brooke Schmiesing, bus driver Anita Frasher, bus driver John Reitz, and sixth grade math teacher Leslie Moeller.
•Approved field trips by East Jay Middle School sixth graders, JCHS FFA members, West Jay Middle School band and choir, foreign exchange students, East Jay and West Jay eighth graders, and the JCHS cheerleaders.
•Approved a bus request by Dunkirk Girl Scouts.[[In-content Ad]]