By Cory C. Cooper
Assistant Principal Tippecanoe Valley Middle School

AKRON — There are new and exciting changes coming to the Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation for the upcoming 2019-2020 school year. TVSC has three new programs that will enhance the communication between its district schools, the community, and for everyone who uses them. The three new programs are FinalForms, Eventlink and Skyward.

Cory C. Cooper

The Tippecanoe Valley Middle School and High School athletic departments have partnered with FinalForms, an online forms and data management service. FinalForms allows you to complete and sign athletic participation forms for your students. The most exciting news is that FinalForms saves data from season-to-season and year-to-year, meaning that you will never need to enter the same information twice! FinalForms also pre-populates information wherever possible, for each of your students, saving you time. For a student to participate in middle or high school athletics this upcoming school year, you must create an account on the https://tippecanoevalley-in.finalforms.com site and turn in a copy of the student’s physical. Valid physicals must have been completed on or after April 1, 2019.  The parent and student will sign off on required documents and their coaches and administrators will be notified of their eligibility.

The second program also supports communication about athletics and school events. Starting this fall, grades 6-12 athletic events will be accessible through the Eventlink app or website. Parents can now stay up-to-date with their student’s schedule with the ability to see every event with details, as well as practice schedules. Parents will get daily reminders about the calendars they subscribe to, straight to their phone or email, and they will have the ability to print the calendar. Be the first to know about any changes through the app, by syncing and exporting calendars!

Our latest major improvement consists of upgrading the corporation’s K-12 student information system to Skyward. Skyward is a very powerful program with many new features that will streamline the corporation’s educational and management processes as well as allow for greater parent and student collaboration. TVSC expects this increased collaboration to result in closer partnerships between school and home, a key factor in improving student achievement. With anytime, any-device access to upcoming assignments, guardians can provide additional support and intervention from home.

Some new features that parents will notice:

• The ability for parents to use the Family Access app to see all information pertaining to any child in their household on one screen.
• Parents will be able to review grades, view messages and notifications, keep tabs on attendance, monitor behavior, see upcoming events with the built-in calendar and manage fees and payments for athletics, classroom and textbook, and food service.
• Now, as soon as a teacher makes a change, that change will be available instantaneously.
• Parents can also set thresholds that will trigger alerts that will notify them of changes in their student’s profile.
• The portal’s social media-style message wall makes it easier for parents to communicate with teachers and support staff, while providing a single destination for important school/district announcements.
• One of the biggest improvements for the 2019-2020 school year will be the streamlined enrollment process for the parents.

The target date for returning TVSC students to begin enrollment on the Skyward site is the week of July 29. During the week of July 15, parents should be looking for an enrollment letter to arrive in their mailboxes that will contain all the information necessary to complete the enrollment process.