Athletics Code Of Conduct Will Change, Board Hears
Several changes will be made to the athlete code of conduct at Wawasee High School, the Wawasee school board heard during its regular monthly meeting Tuesday in Syracuse.
Steve Wiktorowski, athletic director at the high school, said the code, which is part of the student handbook, will essentially be rewritten since some of it was inconsistent and had become a “patchwork” of rules added through the years.
He noted a major change will be the punishments for substance abuse. “We talked about it and we were not happy with the results frankly” of the previous punishments. Now there will be a four-step process. On the first offense, an athlete will not get to compete for one-third of the season but will still be able to have contact with the team. The second offense will mean no competing for 50 percent of the season and also having to attend four meetings with either a Bowen Center or other certified substance abuse counselor, but the athlete will still have contact with the team.
A third offense will mean a full year off and no contact at all with the team. And the fourth offense means no further participation in any sport.
Wiktorowski noted other changes will involve cheerleading and rules governing participation in AAU or club sports, among other things.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Joy Goshert, director of instruction and curriculum, gave a report on the corporation calendar survey completed several weeks ago. A total of 589 responses were received. Based on the response, it appears, generally speaking, a majority of the people prefer keeping the calendar the way it is. It was noted slightly more do favor a three-day Thanksgiving Day break instead of two days off.
Also more people favor operating on a three-hour delay and adding an extra hour to the end of the day, though it was noted it is rare a three-hour delay would even be needed. More people are in favor of different ideas being used for parent-teacher conferences.
And the majority would tend to favor a non-traditional calendar by spreading out the school year, though it was noted the responses might be different if a specific option was presented.
Other agenda items included:
• Members of the super mileage cars team for WHS were recognized. Those present to get their certificates included students Brandon Fox, Austin Lemberg, Kevin Schlipf and teacher Allen Coblentz.
• The Wawasee Middle School Academic Super Bowl science team was recognized for placing third at the state competition.
• WHS hosted the LearnZillion workshop April 30. LearnZillion is an online learning resource for math and language arts.
• Overnight trips for Wawasee FFA to attend the state dairy judging contest May 16 in West Lafayette and the State FFA Convention in June, also in West Lafayette, were approved by the board.
• Changes to the 2015-16 student handbook for WHS were approved by the board. Many of the changes will deal with vaping and e-cigarettes.
• Barbara Casey was approved by the board to be the designee for the school corporation involving small claims court items.
• WHS annual honors program will be held at 7 p.m. May 27 in the school auditorium.
• WHS graduation is at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 6, in the main spectator gym.