A closed call? Schools deciding when to make the decision
At least one area school district will start assessing roads tonight to see if they can make the call on whether or not to have school earlier than usual.

Riverside Elementary students get creepy crawlies
Dick Schnelle, a volunteer with the Louisville Zoo, walked slowly around the silent classroom filed with about 30 students at Riverside Elementary School, with a gray and brown, 2 1/2 foot long rosy boa entwined in his fingers and trailing up his arm.

Curtain Call: Local theater ‘legend’ comes back to direct play at New Albany High School
In a smaller theater set up behind the main stage, Tom Weatherston prepares to start rehearsal by passing around a basket for everyone to put their cell phones in.

Local church hopes to impact 10,000 youth with message of hope
Tragedy struck Katie Lyon two years ago, when her boyfriend at Parkview Middle School committed suicide.

Ivy Tech more than halfway to fundraising goal

Having a heart for education

NA-FC bus driver wins state award, to go on to compete at national level
Chaplin, who has been driving a bus for 34 years with most of that time with NA-FC, is now being recognized for going above and beyond her call of duty. She was nominated for and won the 2009 Educational Support Professional of the Year Award from the Indiana State Teachers Association.

Holding back to move forward?
Imagine a 9-year-old, third-grade girl who is great in school. She performs well in all subjects, but doesn’t do well on standardized tests, such as ISTEP.

IT'S ALL IN A NAME: St. Mary’s school goes back to name it used 150 years ago

MAKING THE DECISION: Local school districts explain why they choose to close school
Administrative teams from all school districts in Clark and Floyd counties always hit the roads early when there is inclement weather to determine whether or not to close school.

Great gains at Charlestown High School
Charlestown High School leaders say counselors, credit-recovery courses, tutoring and basic skills classes have helped improve its graduation rate recently.

THE RACE IS ON: Greater Clark lays out plan in hopes of getting federal grants
Months before schools were asked to officially file for the federal Race to the Top competitive grants, Greater Clark County Schools’ administrators had been working on a plan, with hopes of getting $9 million over the course of four years.

School program inspired by Columbine tragedy
Bailey Duff and Olivia Eiler weren’t even 2 years old when 12 students and one teacher were killed at Columbine High School in 1999.

Random drug testing moves forward
Random drug testing may become a reality for student drivers, athletes, ROTC members and fine arts students in Floyd County’s two public high schools.

HOPE FOR CHANGE: NA-FC teachers’ association, community members team up in search for new school board candidates
Teachers, community members and more are organizing in Floyd County with hopes of impacting the school board election this May.

Breaking down the numbers crunch at Greater Clark
The recent announcement of cuts coming to Indiana schools has Greater Clark County Schools officials scrambling for ways to cut $3 million out of the current budget.
“The public is being told it’s 3 percent cuts,” said Marty Bell, chief operations officer, adding that it’s more like 4.67 percent of the general fund, which pays mostly for salaries. “It’s not just us either. It’s happening to every school corporation in the state.”

Rock Creek gets charter
Principal Sara Hauselman finally heard the words she waited for more than a year to hear.

Anderson seeks NA-FC school board position
Jan Habermel Anderson has announced her candidacy for the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. Board of Trustees. School board candidates are elected in the May primary.

Report: Man tried to lure girls into car at Jeffersonville bus stop
The Jeffersonville Police Department’s first shift units have stepped up patrols near bus stops after two young girls reported that a man in a tan PT Cruiser tried to lure them into the vehicle.
The incident occurred Wednesday morning at about 8:20 a.m. at the intersection of Birchwood and Pinehurst drives, off Plank Road.

THEM Vs. THE WORLD: River Valley students compete in annual National Geographic Bee

Ivy Tech sets another enrollment record
For the fifth year in a row, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana’s Sellersburg campus is breaking enrollment records, this time with its spring enrollment.

SEEING STARS: Three area schools named Four Star Schools

EMPTY BOWLS: Providence students raising money to fight hunger in the area

CONTRACT SETTLED: Greater Clark Schools board gives ok to teacher raises
The Greater Clark County Schools board approved the recently ratified contract with the teachers association, set up a new system that will make the board more transparent to the community, accepted a donation to the superintendent’s salary and much more at their meeting Tuesday night.

BALANCING ACT: NA-FC schools need to cut $6.6 million to balance budget this year
In the superintendent’s office, New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. administrators gathered to discuss what Deputy Superintendent Brad Snyder says is his worst nightmare that has come true.

GCCS teachers ratify contract

AN ETHICAL QUESTION? The Evening News investigates how school GCCS board members funded their campaigns

Five Clark County schools miss graduation rate goal; Henryville, Clarksville make it
Five high schools in the county did not meet the state’s goal of having 90 percent of students graduate in 2009, according to figures released Friday by the Indiana Department of Education.
However, two schools did. Henryville High School came in at exactly 90 percent and Clarksville High School reached 92.6 percent. The average for Indiana schools was 81.5 percent in 2009.

CHS Building for a Future
Students armed with maps filled the halls of the new portion of Charlestown High School, which opened to them Monday morning.
“It feels like I’m in the middle of school again on the first day and don’t know where to go,” Malachi Dean, 14, said. “It’s a whole new concept.”

Ivy Tech hosts spring registration
Ivy Tech Community College of Southern Indiana will host an open registration for its spring 2010 semester from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Jan. 5, at its campus, 8204 Ind. 311, at Interstate 265 and Exit 9, Sellersburg.

Two West Clark schools named ‘Best Buys’

They come bearing gifts
On Friday, Santa Claus made a very special trip to Maple Elementary School in Jeffersonville. Because all the students were so good this year, Santa brought more than 400 stuffed animals that lined the gymnasium, for the eighth-annual Bears on Parade

Greater Clark, teachers still in contract talks
It appears no collective bargaining agreement will be reached between Greater Clark County Schools and its teachers and bus drivers until 2010, but the school board president sounded confident an agreement will be in place early next year.

Education board gives governor suggestions
The Indiana State Board of Education on Friday provided Gov. Mitch Daniels with recommendations for ways school corporations can absorb kindergarten through grade 12 budget reductions without reducing the number of classroom teachers.

LOOKING FOR AN INCENTIVE: NA-FC hires consultant to investigate a deal to get more teachers to retire
With looming budget cuts and an uncertain economy, the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. is hoping that offering a retirement incentive will get more upper level teachers to retire.

Deer leg found at Jeff High School
Greater Clark County Schools is investigating after part of a deer leg was discovered at Jeffersonville High School.

PHOTO GALLERY: Pine View Elementary students make Ginger Bread houses

Water main break closes Ivy Tech until 5 p.m.

STATE RELEASES GCCS AUDIT: Valentine cited for not paying bills for building rentals
Nearly a year after it started, the Indiana State Board of Accounts has released the audit on Greater Clark County Schools that was initiated after the SBOA received a call requesting it to investigate.

Riverside Elementary students are banking on it
Gabrielle Yowell smiled nervously as she made sure everyone was in place.
Monday was the first day of the 10-year-old’s new job as bank manager at her school, Riverside Elementary, in Jeffersonville.
“We’re in the fifth grade and we’re running a bank!” she exclaimed, still surprised by what was going on.
As part of a partnership with PNC Bank, the school is running a real bank, allowing elementary students to start up or put money in savings accounts. Withdrawals and large deposits are not allowed at the school site, but can be made at any bank branch location.

NA-FC to offer retirement incentive to administrators
The New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School board is looking to offer incentives to get administrators and teachers to retire.

Scribner surprises Principal Rhonda Mull after she was named Middle School Principal of the Year
Her son, his girlfriend and a few students then took her for a tour of the halls, leading the way with a banner like a parade.
“They couldn’t have done anything that would have meant more,” Mull said with tears in her eyes. “That will be a highlight of my life for me.”

Clarksville student has gathering spirit
Sitting beside a stack of 17 boxes filled with toys and supplies, 10-year-old Carley Niemeier grinned as she talked about why she did what she did.
Niemeier is one of the children at George Rogers Clark Elementary School participating in Operation Christmas Child, a program that gives a shoe box of toys, hygiene items, school supplies and more to children who otherwise would not receive a holiday gift. What sets Niemeier apart is that she’s participated for each of the four years the school has been involved in the program, bringing in the most boxes each year.

MORE OPTIONS: Alternative program opens up to elementary students
Mary Lang, a once-retired teacher and recent home-school adviser, stood at the front of her classroom at Options Alternative School giving a lesson to her only student, who sat in the front row.

Van drives into New Albany school
A driver lost control and drove his van through a fence and into Silver Street Elementary, leaving the school with about $50,000 in damages. The accident happened Wednesday at 12:19 a.m., according to police reports. It states that a van, a Ford Econoline E350, was found partially in the school.

Charlestown’s Auto-Tech building put on hold
Accusations flew that school board members are accepting donations for their campaigns in favor of voting a certain way after the Greater Clark County Schools board voted down a contract with an architectural firm to build the auto-tech building for Charlestown High School.

NA-FC school board will not take a position with the proposed teacher licensure changes
The New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. board is saying they will not take a position on the proposed teacher licensure changes, proposed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett.

Reaching out for youth: Area mentoring groups join forces to help search for more volunteers

Indiana Tech exploring opening campus in New Albany
Working adults looking to finish their college degrees may soon have another option in the area.

Preparing for change: State school superintendent warns of potential cuts, accountability, school grading
With financial cuts looming in the state, Indiana’s top education official Tony Bennett stopped by The Evening News and The Tribune on Friday to talk about what’s to come with budget cuts, teacher licensure changes, grading schools based on performance and charter schools, among other topics.

Rock Creek enters the home stretch
Less than 24 hours after Rock Creek Christian Academy officials presented their full charter school proposal at Ball State University, Principal Sara Hauselman received an e-mail with the good news.

Indiana Tech exploring possibility of opening
Working adults looking to finish their college degrees may soon have another option in the area.

Stock market crash course: St. Mary’s students learn ups and downs of stock market through game
In a room filled with middle schoolers at St. Mary’s Catholic School quietly working together on computers, 12-year-old Graham Wood jumped up and screamed with excitement.

Final stretch for Rock Creek Christian Academy
It’s a mix of nerves and excitement for Sara Hauselman, principal of Rock Creek Christian Academy in Sellersburg.
Today, she is going to Ball State University in Muncie to make her final pitch for Rock Creek to open as a charter school in the fall of 2010.
“You’re always nervous with stuff like that,” Hauselman said. “You don’t ever know until you get that final word, but I’m very optimistic.”

Bringing college applications to the 21st century
High school students juggling jobs, homework, sports, clubs and more can take one thing off their to-do lists — mailing in transcripts for college admission.

GCCS to vaccinate against H1N1
Greater Clark County Schools will start vaccinating children against the H1N1, or swine flu, at two schools Thursday.

Department of Education looks to stop myths
Public hearing is Thursday in Scottsburg

Speaking for the future
Austyn Clark stood in front of his fifth-grade class at Floyds Knobs Elementary Thursday and performed a demonstration of his family secret to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without tearing the bread.

Fire forces evacuation of Parkwood
A minor electrical fire Tuesday morning at Parkwood Elementary School in Clarksville caused an evacuation and students to be moved to an alternate site.

Fire causes evacuation of Parkwood Elementary

NA-FC School Corp. waiting for cuts

The race to vaccinate
The H1N1, or swine flu, is affecting schools throughout the county, including one that had about 20 percent of its population out for days.

Something to type home about
As the one-to-one computer initiatives at Charlestown middle and high schools receive much attention, staff at Pleasant Ridge Elementary School are starting one as well.

Greater Clark looks to trim teachers
Greater Clark County Schools plans to reduce its teaching and assistant teaching staff by 45 positions next year.

Greater Clark County Schools program helps new teachers transition to district
Dehr is one of the approximately 30 new teachers at Greater Clark County Schools, according to Mariane Fisher, supervisor of instruction. To help those teachers deal with the transition from school to teaching or for those who are just new to the district, Fisher heads up a year-long New Teacher Induction Program for the district, where they talk about teaching strategies, problems they face and more.

Network allows Indiana parents to see child's test answers

Parent/teacher conferences in jeopardy
Changes at the state level are putting parent/teacher conferences in jeopardy for some school districts and leaving others looking for creative solutions.

NA-FC talks cuts
New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. board members showed shock on their faces and some gasped as they looked at their future via a long-term forecast of their general fund, which pays mostly for salaries.

Back to the table for teachers, school system at Greater Clark
Greater Clark County Schools’ teachers continue to work without a contract after they voted down the administration’s one-year offer last week.

WEST CLARK: Coaching the teachers
At West Clark Community Schools, they’re working to improve test scores, too.

Charlestown will help pay for laptops for middle-schoolers
The Charlestown City Council voted to help fund a program to give laptop computers to middle-schoolers Monday, to the tune of $84,000 over three years.

NA-FC Schools preparing to make budget cuts
Another year of flat-lined revenue while costs increase may cause the New Albany-Floyd Consolidated School Corp. to cut about $2 million from the 2010 general fund, which mostly is used to pay salaries.

Greater Clark board approves 1:1 funding for middle-schoolers
In a 5-2 vote Tuesday night, the Greater Clark County Schools board voted to implement the one-to-one computer initiative at Charlestown Middle School.
However, the project will not go on as anticipated, which was to provide a laptop to each student in the school so that they could take them home if they paid for liability insurance.

READ IT: Transcript of President Obama's speech to school children

Pilot research program targets Floyd County

Indiana teachers union insurance fund files lawsuit

Greater Clark superintendent welcomes back teachers, challenges them to beat state average
Daeschner also discussed budget issues, saying the preliminary general fund budget is about $75.4 million, about $4.73 million more than the projected revenue. He said figuring in stimulus and rainy-day money still leaves about a $2.1 million deficit.

Ivy Tech in Sellersburg starts fall breaking records
Preliminary figures show the school is up 14.5 percent in enrollment when compared to last fall’s record breaking enrollment.

Greater Clark hosting back-to-school event Saturday

COOKING UP LESSONS: Breakfast teaches Grant Line students how to deal with the unexpected
After hearing about the project from another teacher, Heather Finn decided it would be a good idea to get her fourth/fifth grade split class, all accelerated learners, to cook as a way to learn math by measuring out ingredients, teamwork skills and more — such as what to do when the burners blow all the fuses in the classroom.

Salaries for new COO, CFO, other positions released by Greater Clark Schools
The cost of recent hires and promotions at Greater Clark County Schools totals nearly $500,000, according to documents attained via an open-records request by The Evening News.

Vandals strike at Jeffersonville High School
A worker arrived just after 7 a.m. Saturday to find spray paint on the brick wall outside the cafeteria area and throughout the hallways and in classrooms at JHS, according to a police report.

State changes to cost NA-FC School Corp. about $500,000
Some changes made by the state legislature may end up costing New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. about $500,000.

PHOTO: Back-to-school jam in Clark County

West Clark Community Schools faces traffic woes
Reed said the afternoon congestion on the buses may ease as practices start for various sports this fall.

New methods tried to teach women about safe fish by Purdue University experts
Purdue professor Charles Santerre (San-TEHR) says the goal is to keep babies healthy.

New teachers start off the year at New Albany-Floyd County

Mentor Mii Program to start at NA-FC schools
The first Mentor Mii Program training is from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday in the board room at the Education Support Center, 2813 Grant Line Road, New Albany. Breakfast and lunch will be served. To RSVP or for more information on the program, contact Jerome Costner at 812-542-2112 or jcostner@nafcs.k12.in.us.

Greater Clark County Schools: Stephen Daeschner brings his Jefferson County Public Schools deputy on as new COO
Another retiree and former Stephen Daeschner co-worker is coming to Greater Clark County Schools

PHOTO: Supply and demand in Floyd County

Geared up for another school year in West Clark Community Schools

New superintendent heads annual event for New Albany-Floyd County teachers
The official start of school is just around the corner for New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. and that means

LMPD acting major joins IU Southeast as chief of university police

Backpack angels helping kids get back to school in Southern Indiana
A program that just finished its fifth year in Louisville is getting ready to start in Southern Indiana.

Community Foundation of Southern Indiana announces 2009 Paul W. Ogle scholars
Thanks to a grant from the Paul W. Ogle Foundation Inc., the Community Foundation

Indiana University students put Shakespeare characters on trial
Indiana University students will hold mock murder trials this month based on

Hoosier Academies will run Indiana’s first virtual school
Hoosier Academies has been chosen to operate Indiana’s first virtual charter school

New Albany-Floyd County school board releases contract details
The three-year contract gives Hibbard $152,000 a year

A clothes call in Clark County

Clarksville school officials assess flood damage
Today, school officials plan to assess the magnitude of the damage.