Written by Dr. E. Ric Frataccia, Superintendent
The Portage Township School Corporation earned the distinction of being graded by the state of Indiana as an Exemplary or Grade A school corporation. The distinction is due primarily to the academic performance of our students in English/Language Arts and Mathematics.
Obviously, it is the performance of our students that enables our school corporation to earn such a noteworthy distinction; however, it is the support that our students consistently receive from their teachers, administrators, parents, staff members and community members that greatly enhances the probability that our students will achieve such a high distinction. This combination of high quality student performance and the high quality support that students consistently receive by the adult members of their schools and community has continually increased in strength.
The ever-increasing ability of our students to achieve creates a positive challenge for their teachers and administrators to create programs and curricular offerings that will meet their needs. A sampling of the programs and curricular offerings that we have implemented this year and are studying for possible implementation in the future follows:
Dual College Credit – We have expanded our Dual Credit programs significantly. We now have partnerships with Ivy Tech and PNC. We anticipate that a large percentage of our students will graduate from PHS with one year of college credit. This will be quite a savings for them and their parents.
Alternative Energy Partnerships – We are studying the feasibility of incorporating wind and solar energy in an effort to reduce utility costs. In the process we may end up having a partnership with Fronius, who may be able to advise us as to what should be the content of a solar energy curriculum for high school students.
Teen Court and PHS Night School – We believe that adolescents are prone to making errors in judgment. We also believe that it is important for them to recognize these errors and attempt to correct the errors themselves so that they can learn from their mistakes. We have implemented Teen Court and “Night School” to assist our students to learn from their mistakes and simultaneously do so while maintaining their school attendance. To date, both programs have been beneficial for our students.
1:1 Technology Initiative – Our goal is that during the next five years, each of our students will be provided a take-home computer device. We believe that this will greatly enhance teaching and learning. We have been studying what is required to move to a 1:1 Plan and, in so doing, we have greatly strengthened our technology infrastructure in preparation for this eventuality.
Soon, our students will have their books, practice activities, curriculum maps, assessments and standards-based progress reports on their own school-assigned computers. This day is now closer than we dreamed possible several years ago.
Online Registration for School – We are very close to having the ability for parents to register their children for school from their home computer. Even if parents don’t have a home computer, the time that it will take to register a child for school will be greatly reduced when they are able to do so online.
We are proud of our students and their parents, teachers, administrators and community members for the high level of distinction that they have enabled the Portage Township School Corporation to achieve. As you can see from the sample of program and curricular initiatives that we have implemented or are considering, we intend to continue to improve upon our services to our students and the community.