When the 2014-15 school year begins in August, the Wawasee Community School Corp. will be without a total of 384.5 years of teaching experience. A total of 12 teachers are retiring from the school corporation and most were present to be honored by the school board during its regular monthly meeting Tuesday evening in Syracuse.

Retiring teachers were presented a plaque in honor of their service and also given lifetime passes to Wawasee athletic events. Most of the retiring teachers this year taught at Wawasee Middle School and six of the 12 teachers had 30 or more years experience in the Wawasee district.

Those retiring, the school they last taught at and the number of years they taught in the Wawasee district are as follows: Janet Perzee, North Webster Elementary, 18; Denise Potter, Milford School, 36; Jay Smith, WMS, 32.5; Darcy Hively, WMS, 33.5; Richard Bauer, WMS, 27; Elaine Bokhart, WMS, 36; David Eldridge, WMS, 31; Sally Hoy, WMS, 38; Cayle Woodard, Milford School, 22; Janet Shofner, Syracuse Elementary, 28.5; Diana Parker, Title I coordinator, 5.5; Deb Gaby, reading coach for the district, 26.

Other agenda items included:

• Wawasee High School valedictorian Ashley Helfers and salutatorian Katy Ashpole were recognized by the school board.

• An Arts Partnership grant of $15,800 from the Dekko Foundation to be used by each of the three elementary schools was approved by the board.

• The board approved a $500 donation from Knights of Columbus for the WHS Academic Hall of Fame.

• Approval was given (required annually) by the board to allow administrators to seek state and federal grants.

• Social studies and English Academic Super Bowl teams at WHS were recognized by the board as each placed at the state competition.

• Among the personnel recommendations approved by the board were retirement requests by Betty Bultemeier and Sue Kraft, administrative assistants in the central office. Bultemeier will retire effective July 1 and Kraft Aug. 27.

• The board approved an overnight field trip for WHS FFA to the state convention.

• And Joy Goshert, director of instruction and curriculum for the Wawasee district, noted spring ISTEP+ results won’t be released to the public for a few more weeks due to scores needing to be recalculated for some students.