Pictured, from left, are Board Member Aaron Zolman and Board President Adam Heckaman during a previous school board meeting.

MENTONE — The Tippecanoe Valley School Board heard that the corporation received a $100,000 Indiana Department of Homeland Security school safety grant during the board meeting held tonight, Sept. 16.

Last year, the corporation was awarded a $50,000 grant, but this year they received the maximum grant amount of $100,000.

Lori Tilden-Geiger, director of marketing, public relations and grant writer, presented the news to the school board.

“Of the 429 applications, there were only 38 funded at the maximum amount of $100,000 and Tippecanoe Valley was one of the 38,” said Tilden-Geiger.

The grant will be separated into three categories. $72,048.026 of the grant will be used for cell boosters at the middle school, $25,791.74 will go towards wireless access point upgrades as recommended by an infrastructure audit and the remaining $2,160 will go toward the annual Raptor Visitor Maintenance subscription.

“In our school district, in the rural areas, cell phone coverage is spotty at best,” said Tilden-Geiger. “And in the spring, you might remember, the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department and the emergency management department provided us with a great School Guard app. The problem was that the School Guard app wouldn’t work everywhere in our buildings. So it was useless in some areas … The wireless accessibility, cellphone accessibility, it’s not a luxury anymore, it’s a safety liability.”

Superintendent Blaine Conley thanked Tilden-Geiger and the school safety team for their work on securing this grant. “We appreciate all your work in getting this grant and helping our schools become safer each year — it’s a big deal.”

The school board approved accepting the grant.

Tippecanoe High School Senior Kirstyn Yoder was present at the meeting and recognized for being a National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist. Yoder was one of 16,000 semi-finalists chosen out of 1.5 million applicants. In addition to her academic work, Yoder is also on the varsity softball team, competes on the math and science Academic Superbowl teams and is a member of the Girls Who Code club.

The next regular school board meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 14.

In other news, the board also:

• Approved the hiring of Phelix Omondi, assistant principal at TVMS; Tonya Cook, cook at TVMS, Abby Martin, cook at TVMS; Destiny Wallis, cook at TVMS; and Kristi Gregory, instructional assistant at Mentone Elementary.
• Approved the extracurricular assignments of Jarred Littlejohn as varsity boys’ baseball coach at TVHS and Lora Dishon as assistant swim coach at TVHS.
• Approved the resignation of Thadd Mellot, boys’ golf coach at TVHS and Clayton Adamson, assistant baseball coach at TVHS.
• Held a public hearing for the 2020 budget. No public comment or discussion from board members was heard.
• Accepted a Donors Choose grant in the amount of $626.58 for Mastering Math Through Games and Collaboration and a Donors Choose grant in the amount of $548 for cooking supplies.
• Accepted a donation of $500 from Psi Iota Xi to support equipment needs for students with disabilities.
• Heard a presentation about the corporation’s high ability program from Tania Grimes.