Pictured are the members of the Warsaw School Board, Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert; Andy Streit, physical education teacher at Eisenhower; Dena Lancaster, family and consumer sciences teacher at WACC; and therapy dogs Champ, Maya and Sawyer. Photo by Jackie Gorski, Times-Union.

By Jackie Gorski
Times-Union

WARSAW — Warsaw School Board heard about a partnership with Grace College to help students with their literacy during their meeting Tuesday, Nov. 12.

Megan Smith, programs and partnerships director for the Center for Literacy and Learning, said the center came about through a Lilly Endowment grant.

One way the center helps students is through a literacy lab at Jefferson Elementary School. It serves as a training ground for teacher candidates at Grace College. The literacy lab kicked off over the summer, she said.

Also, a tutoring center has been established at Grace to support students in the community. Teacher candidates at Grace volunteer at the tutoring center.

Smith said the tutoring center currently has five tutors and serves students at Washington STEM, Jefferson and Lincoln elementary schools. They currently have 36 third-graders who use their services.
Smith said tutoring isn’t always affordable.

Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said WCS was able to get tutoring services free of charge for students through this partnership.

Smith said students at Washington and Lincoln are bused to the Grace campus after school and picked by their parents when the students are done.

Smith said tutors meet students three nights a week for one hour, working on things including phonemics.

Earlier in the meeting, the school board learned about therapy dogs within the school corporation.

Hoffert said WCS has six therapy dogs and one drug-sniffing dog in the school system.

Lucy is at Harrison, Alucard is at Edgewood, Chap and Clifford are at Leesburg, Sawyer is at the Warsaw Area Career Center and Maya is at Eisenhower.

Andy Streit, physical education teacher at Eisenhower, said he believes Maya was one of the first, if not the first therapy dog, at WCS and this is Maya’s fourth year with WCS.

Board Vice President Randy Polston owns Champ. He said when he picked up Champ from the breeders, he got a call from his son, Nathan Polston, principal at Leesburg Elementary. Nathan told Randy Leesburg’s therapy dog at the time was retiring due to age and wanted to know if Randy would train Champ to become a therapy dog. Randy said his response was yes because he dedicated his life to helping students, so this was just another way to do that.

Nathan told Randy would have to cover the basic house and potty training for Champ and there were funds Leesburg could use for Champ to go through training to become a therapy dog. Champ turned 1 in July and is now full-time at Leesburg.

Dena Lancaster, family and consumer sciences teacher at WACC, said having therapy dogs in the school is making a difference. She noted one interaction a student had where an autistic child had an outburst and went out of the classroom. Sawyer went after the child and was able to calm the student down.
Hoffert said the dogs have a calming presence within the schools.

Randy said the stories of students making connections to therapy dogs are amazing.

In other business, the board heard WCS has a $2,000 sign-up and referral bonus for bus drivers. Chief Financial Officer April Fitterling said there are several bus drivings who are retiring at the end of the year and the school corporation wants to make sure those positions are backlogged.