Area 18 future still in limbo

An agreement between nine local school districts to provide career and technical education is being reworked after a disagreement stemming from one school providing transportation for students from other districts. 

Area 18, which is composed of Jay, South Adams, Blackford, Southern Wells, Adams Central, Bluffton-Harrison, North Adams (Bellmont), Northern Wells (Norwell) and Huntington schools, is one of Indiana’s planning districts for career and technical education. All Indiana schools belong to a district, but are able to move from one to another if needed. There are about 50 districts in the state. 

“What the planning district will do is help guide the creation of career and technical education programs,” Kevin Keller, Area 18’s director, said. “That’s done by supervising the development of career and technical education programs at all of the schools, by receiving the federal Perkins Grant, and administering that grant, making sure that that money is being spent appropriately on programming.” 

High school students are able to take career and technical education classes at their own schools, or can take those classes at other schools that share in the agreement. These students take the classes part-time and remain enrolled at their home school. 

“We’re shooting for concentrators,” Keller said. “We’re offering career and technical education programming which is a logical sequence of courses that will result in outcomes of some sort, which could be dual credits, college credits or industry certification.” 

The programs are funded partly by the Perkins Act, a federal funding source for career and technical education in schools.

However, the majority of money comes from the state and is distributed based on enrollment in career and technical education courses. 

Jay County High School, which typically only exchanges students with South Adams High School because of its distance from the other schools, has 892 students enrolled in a CTE course, according to principal Chad Dodd. That’s about 91 percent of its student body. 

Fourteen students from South Adams High School come to Jay County to take biomedical science, graphic arts and family and consumer science classes. Classes offered at South Adams include fire and rescue, precision machining and auto courses, and 27 JCHS students attend those. 

Tension between several of the participating schools in Area 18 flared up last year when Southern Wells decided to start busing in transfer students from other counties. Previously, it had refrained from crossing into other school districts’ boundaries to pick up students. 

According to minutes from that school board’s March 2017 meeting, the district had the potential to earn an additional $388,000 in general fund revenue by increasing its enrollment with students from Jay, Huntington and Blackford counties. Some parents had requested buses be sent to Pennville in anticipation of Pennville Elementary School closing in May 2017. 

To counteract the decision by Southern Wells, several the nine school districts voted last year to amend the agreement and mandate that schools couldn’t go into other school districts to transport enrolled students who lived there. As that vote was not unanimous, the Indiana State Board of Education advised that the current agreement would have to canceled instead and a new agreement adopted. That vote would not have to be unanimous. 

Seven of the nine school districts voted in September to cancel the current agreement and accept the new one. Southern Wells voted against the decision, while Northern Wells tabled its vote. 

The new agreement reads, “... participating school corporations agree, as a condition of participation, not to provide any school transportation services within other participating school corporations’ boundaries.” 

This would apply to the transportation of enrolled students, but not to transportation for Area 18-related activities, other shared services or field trips. 

It’s up to the State Board of Education to decide whether Area 18 can accept this new agreement.

If allowed, participating schools would have to cease busing in enrolled students from other districts, or would have two years to apply to join a different career and technical education planning district. 

However, if the state board rules against the new agreement, Jay, Huntington, Blackford or any other school could decide to join a different district.

Jay School Corporation superintendent Jeremy Gulley said he will wait for the state board of education’s answer to make a decision. He wants to see Area 18 act as a true cooperative in the interest of the students. 

“Area 18 is a good association, we’ve had good relations for over a couple of decades now and it’s disappointing that some of this has been disrupted by choices made by some districts, at least one particular district,” Gulley said. “We’re going to wait and see how the process works out. We hope we can return to a situation where kids are the focus.”  

The superintendents of the participating Area 18 schools will be updated on the situation at their meeting Tuesday, Keller said, but right now no further action can be taken until the state board of education rules on the new agreement.