FAYETTEVILLE – The Lawrence County Independent School Board met in a regular session Thursday night to discuss the updates to the school.
The board talked with Brenda Mescher of Education One at Trine University to discuss the status of the school as a whole. The school is currently meeting the standard for academics and reporting requirements while seeing a steady increase in attendance numbers.
Overall the school, in comparison to other schools with Education One, is medial in their numbers, which is due to the vast numbers of other areas and school populations but still performing at high levels.
School Nurse Nikki Wright shared the progress to starting a new Garden Club at the school, calling it the Phoenix Farm Garden Club.
The group of 43 students in K-8th grade will meet every other Tuesday beginning on March 29th and has received $2,000 from Ascension St. Vincent Dunn Hospital and has applied for the George Arthur Foundation Grant of $3,000 as well as a Growing Together Grant for $1,500.
Director of Finance and Operations Trisha Turner then requested approval to switch the lights inside of the school to energy efficient LED lights, with the assistance of Duke Energy.
Duke Energy will come into the school and replace the lights and will front 71 percent of the $32,000 it will cost for the switch, while the school will pay a one-time fee of $8,963.87. This was approved by the board.
Turner also requested the approval of the amended food to school program, which currently serves 93 different school districts in Indiana, including LCIS which allows for a larger group rate. This was also approved by the board.
Principal Joanne Symcox then provided the Principals report by sharing information on a survey that will benefit the families and community members, living with food insecurities.
The school applied for a grant, and is wanting to determine the best course of action that will most benefit the community.
Symcox then shared that two students represented LCIS in the 48th Annual WBIW Lawrence County Spelling Bee with 5th grader Carson Lyons representing the Elementary School and 8th grader Gavyn Lemons representing the Junior High.
She also shared that on March 10th, the Bedford Lions club will be coming by the school to perform vision tests for the Kindergarten students as well as a representative from Ivy Tech Community College coming to the school on April 6th to answers any questions the students may have about college.
Lastly, Teresa Wagoner was officially hired as a Middle School Aid for LCIS and although she wasn’t present during the meeting, she was welcomed by the board.
