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New School, Gym, Programs, Leader, Highlight Progress in Northern Wells
By GLEN WERLING
There is a palpable feeling of excitement in the Northern Wells School system as a very important date nears for one of its schools.
On Monday, June 30, the construction of the new Lancaster Elementary School will be complete.
As a matter of fact, it’s really complete now, but June 30 is the absolute deadline.
Lancaster principal Tamara Needler said that some school administrators told her that there would probably be some portion of the school that would not be finished by that June 30 deadline—or even by the time school is ready to start in August.
But she has stayed focused on that June 30 deadline and has brought it up at every construction meeting. She’s also mentioned it to the workers in passing as she’s toured the construction site. She believes that has helped in keeping the contractors on track.
The new Lancaster school is laid out somewhat like a baseball diamond. Home plate is the gymnasium and cafetorium. The base paths are hallways that connect the three “learning communities” to homeplate.
Visitors to the school will enter from what is essentially the home dugout, where the office is located, while the students will come into the building from the visitor’s dugout.
The school will be remarkably secure. Visitors will not be able to enter the school without going through the office first. Exterior doors, other than those at the main entrance, will be locked at all times with entrance capable only with someone carrying a specially designed card. Exits, for fire safety, will be from standard “smash bars” on the inside doors.
One of the most unique features of the school is The Courtyard, an open learning space that features a giant brown space in the shape of Indiana. According to Needler, children will be able to learn geography in a graphic way by being able to draw with sidewalk chalk on the map.
The courtyard contains multiple trees and plantings native to Indiana. There are also areas for planting and cultivation for children to learn about germination and plant life.
The courtyard will also be used as a central outdoor gathering place that will be sheltered from the outside world.
Another unique feature of the school is that is heated and cooled geothermally. Covering seven acres north and west of the school building, the geothermal field will be used with a combination of 93 heat pumps to keep the school extraordinarily comfortable. So flexible is the system that one side of the school may be heated while the other side may be cooled. That will come in handy on bright sunny days in late winter when the sun will warm up the south side of the school but the north side will still be in shadow.
The new gymnasium is spacious and open. One of its great features is it will be open to the public after school hours, Needler said. The rest of the school can be locked off from the gym, she added.
Continuity is one of the features of the new school. Pillar designs at the exterior entrance to the school are featured inside. The three learning communities are mirror images of each other. Carpeting in the hallway features stick figure drawings of a boy and a girl, a sailboat, a sunrise and a tree. Each of the communities will be identified by one of those four symbols.
The office area, gymnasium and cafeteria will be identified by the stick figures of the boy and girl. The figures will be featured in relief form on the interior pillars.
The pre-school and kindergarten learning community will feature the sunrise. Dubbed “New Horizons Place,” each of the doorways of the rooms in the community will feature stick figure drawings of a sunrise. The carpet trim and door and window mouldings will also be painted yellow.
In the next community, “Explorer’s Trail,” the rooms feature a stick figure drawing of a tree and green mouldings and trim. The third community, “Navigator’s Way,” features a stick figure drawing of a sailboat and blue mouldings and trim.
There are four other stick figures that will be feature prominently throughout the building—a boy, a girl, a house and a flower.
Visitors to the school will be greeted by a full width view of the courtyard, flanked by display cases featuring memorabilia from the old Lancaster school. Needler said Lancaster staff members have worked with members of the community to collect a large amount of memorabilia.
Video screens will be posted at the entrance to announce upcoming events, students of the month and events the school is proud of.
One of the main features of the school is all of the working and study areas will have access to a window to the outside world. In portions of the hallways, there will be glassed-in areas from which exterior windows will be visible. Even the break area for the cooks features windows.
Another great feature of the school is its designed with the 21st Century in mind. Broad cable trays run in the ceiling area throughout the school for audio/visual and computer hardware. There’s also room to add on more classroom space if needed.
The new Lancaster school will also have conference rooms for teachers and staff, something that the current Lancaster doesn’t have.
Each learning community is its own self-contained area. The inner hallway that rims the courtyard spans 705 feet, according to building maintenance superintendent John Kochert, while the individual hallways within the learning communities—when added to the inner hallway—span 1,540 feet. As long as a person walking those hallways keeps walking forward, he or she will never get lost because every hallway circles back on itself.
Each of the communities features its own set of restrooms, it’s own “soft area” where students may study, read or be tutored by volunteers, and classrooms connected by interior doors. At both ends of each community are two large 1,100 square foot classrooms. They are connected to two 900 square foot classrooms by restrooms. In all, eight rooms are connected by small restroom areas, leaving four in each community that are not connected.
Each community also features teacher work lounges with copying machines and supplies, eliminating the need for teachers to walk to the front of the school to make copies or get supplies.
The connected classrooms will allow teachers to transition children without taking them out into the main hallways. The building was designed with flexibility in mind. Each community can act as its own self-contained school.
Another unique feature of the pods may be found in the large central restrooms. The boys and girls restrooms are separated by a wall but connected by a common entrance. From a point at the entrance, a teacher may look to the left or to the right and see the sink areas of both restrooms. To see the stalls, a teacher will have to walk all the way into either restroom.
The flexibility of the design of the school is permitting Lancaster to undertake a new framework for education—multi-age structure—starting next school year.
Multi-age classrooms provide an environment where students are grouped according to their skill levels, not grade levels.
Multi-age is not an education program as much as it’s a means by which to better educate children according to their skills level. For example, let’s say Johnnie is a third grader who has the skills to move on to fourth grade in some areas but is behind in other skill areas. Instead of moving on to a traditional fourth grade class, he will be placed in a 3-4 classroom.
Now Janie, who is also a third grader, is well advanced in some areas, but very normal in others. She could move to a 4-5 classroom.
Fifth grade is still the cutoff. There will be no 5-6 classroom. Students who demonstrate advanced capabilities will still have enrichment programs available to them.
The concept may be groundbreaking in Wells County but it has been implemented elsewhere in Indiana and around the United States. The degree of success varies, although when it was brought up by Lancaster educators over a year ago, there was general consensus that some success over the traditional format is universal.
Each multi-age class will be taught by a team of two teachers that will focus on individual student’s strengths and weaknesses.
In addition to gains in academic areas, there are a number of advantages of multi-age education, according to Lancaster teachers. They include increasing a sense of stability among children from one year to the next and providing a positive adult influence.
Also, when students are introduced to a new teacher each year, some precious education time is lost as some students try to “test the boundaries” of the new teacher. By retaining the same teachers, by the second year the students know what to expect.
When the concept was placed before Lancaster parents earlier this year, so many were enthused by the idea that they overwhelmed the school with requests for placements of their children into the new multi-age structure.
The program envisioned for the 2003-04 school year is a pilot program. Traditional grade structure will still be in place.
The school board has approved of eight pilot multi-age classes and 14 traditional classes.
If multi-age succeeds as well as many on the Lancaster staff believe it will, then the school may in the coming years become all multi-age. Any transition will be gradual.
Also new at Northern Wells is a large auxiliary gymnasium at Norwell High School.
The $4,587,450.14 gym project includes a 44,190 square foot auxiliary gymnasium, four new locker rooms with secure access to the outside for fall and spring sports, a new weightroom for training for athletic teams, three new classrooms for the middle school and renovations of the locker rooms in the main gymnasium at the high school. Part of that renovation project included a brand new aerobic workout room that will be opened to the public, as well as a physical education classroom, an expansion of the high school cafeteria and a new teacher’s lounge.
Although not part of the actual project, the lower level bleachers in the main gymnasium were replaced with new, automatic bleachers that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The new bleachers replaced worn-out manual fold wooden ones dating from the school’s construction in the mid-1960’s. They were paid for from funds in the capital projects fund.
The floor of the new gym encompasses three full-size basketball courts surrounded by 18 retractable goals. The side goals also feature adjustable backboards that allow the baskets to be lowered from the standard 10 feet to eight feet for use by elementary students. The floor is ringed by a rubberized track surface designed to minimize stress on ankles and knees.
Bleachers are located along the east wall of the gym to allow spectators to watch a variety of winter sports that take place in the gymnasium including both boys and girls freshman basketball programs and volleyball programs. On Monday nights, the gym is open for a community men’s recreational basketball league and on weekends this past winter, it hosted the Squires league basketball program for young children. Other community activities are in the planning stages, but right now, the gym sees substantial use by the high school itself
When the gym was built, it covered over a portion of the tennis courts. The original courts were removed and rebuilt in an area once occupied by the outfield of the girl’s softball diamond. A new softball diamond was built on a portion of land that was recently purchased east of the middle school. The school corporation hopes to in the future turn that entire tract of land into modern athletic fields.
Buildings, athletic fields and academics are not the only changes being made in Northern Wells.
By a 5-0 vote, the Northern Wells School Board earlier this month appointed Gina G. Berridge, 48, as the first woman to head the school corporation. She will succeed Supt. Dr. Michael Sailsbery who is retiring June 30 after 18 years as superintendent.
Berridge’s current position—the one she is giving up to come here—is Assistant Supt. of Business with the Warrick County School Corporation, located in Boonville. She actually lives in Newburgh on the Ohio River, a bedroom community to Evansville.
Her duties included supervising a $70 million budget, supervising all business related functions and personnel and assisting the superintendent in supervising employees.
She was responsible for development, control and long-range financial planning, monitored all construction and repairs to buildings, bargained and negotiated with the teachers and support staff, assisted with the special education cooperative, policy development, employee evaluation, data collecting and reporting, needs assessment and public relations.
All of her experience in education dating back to 1984 has been in the Warrick County School Corporation. She started as a Title 1 program teacher’s aide at Chandler Elementary School.
During that same time frame, she earned a bachelor of science in education from the University of Southern Indiana (USI) in Evansville. It was her second degree from USI. In 1977, she earned a bachelor of science in business and accounting. From the time she first graduated from ISU, she was a fulltime mom until joining the staff at Chandler.
She is married and has three grown sons—Brad, 25, Matthew 23, and Luke 21.
Berridge first found out about Northern Wells from her connections with Indiana State University. Dr. Robert Boyd, Director of Administrative Placement at Indiana State, who was a member of the University Team that Northern Wells employed to do the superintendent’s search, contacted her.
“He called me up and said, ‘I think you would really like it,’” said Berridge referring to the Northern Wells job.
She met with the members of the Northern Wells board then returned with her husband for a second meeting. She said she was really impressed with the board and the district.
“I’m an assistant superintendent and I was ready to bite the bullet and be a superintendent,” she said. “I’ve done my homework. This is a community that values education, values student success and that’s really evident in the programs, including the band, athletic programs and test scores.”
She said she was also impressed by everything the school corporation does. She was even impressed by the fact that way down along the Ohio River, people know about and think well of Northern Wells.
“I have a lot to bring to Northern Wells,” she said adding, “I feel as a central office administrator and assistant superintendent of a large school corporation, I can bring here all of the good things that I learned there,” she said.