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A Banner Year for Bluffton-Harrison Schools

By JUSTIN PEEPER
Despite numerous federal, state and local educational budget cuts, Bluffton-Harrison schools have made leaps and bounds this year across the board.
Superintendent Thomas Byanski and the district’s three principals say the 2002-2003 school year marked a banner year in many respects, from student performance to technological advances to cooperation between each school’s staff.
“I think we have made a lot of progress by just the coordination and cooperation between the three buildings,” said Jon Bennett, administrative assistant to the superintendent and middle school principal. “There’s just more joint stuff going on than we’ve ever had in my 20 years in the district.”
One of the many keys to the cooperation and coordination, Bennett said, revolved around Bluffton’s new campus environment.
The interconnectedness of the three schools, located less than one-quarter of a mile from each other, has helped in many ways, the school administrators agreed.
“The campus environment that we have with all three schools so close to one another has created a stronger feeling of oneness,” Byanski said. “All three buildings, administrators and staffs are working in conjunction for the betterment of all kids.”
The feeling of oneness, however, has taken on another meaning for the Bluffton schools, a technological significance.
Through the use of fiber optic cable, each school became interconnected three years ago.
Steve Baker, Bluffton High School principal, took advantage of the technology when he began broadcasting morning announcements to high school students, a program viewable at both the middle and elementary schools.
Because each school is connected, a video program recorded at the high school can be transmitted to any classroom in the district. (Every classroom at all three schools has a television.)
The schools will be more connected this fall when the technology coordinator finishes the district Web site.
The district Web site will link to a site for each school, Bennett said.
Unlike in the past, the new Web sites will have consistent formats and will be updated more often.
The district’s technological advancements improved the general atmosphere of the buildings, one area that plays an important role in accreditation.
All Bluffton schools received accreditation from the North Central Accreditation, an offering based on a school’s total program, certification of staff, employee qualifications and general atmosphere of the building and facilities.
An outside team visits each school to study its total program before granting accreditation.
The high school received accreditation in the past, but this year marked the first time the middle and elementary schools sought NCA certification.
“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say we received a glowing review,” Bennett said of the middle school’s accreditation. “We received a review that I would have generally reserved for a school that had been previously reviewed.”
A more tangible sign of progress for the Bluffton schools has to do with dollars and cents.
Since February 2001, tax payers have made five payments on the new high school, $3,419,000 total.
The next payment of approximately $684,000 on the $17,545,000 bond is due in August.
Tax payers have not been hit nearly as hard in the pocket as some predicted.
The current tax rate is $1.3452 based on 100 percent true assessment valuation. (If the rate were figured using previous years’ standards of one-third assessed valuation, it would be $4.0356.)
Many predicted the tax rate would be higher because of the high school, but they failed to recognize that as assessed valuation goes up, the tax rate decreases.
“Each year, there’s more growth and as the assessed valuation goes up that means there’s a broader base for people to share in the expense,” Byanski said.
Looking at the debt service tax rate, however, gives a truer picture of the tax impact.
This rate is part of the $1.3452 figure and the district uses it to pay off existing debts, including the high school and elementary school addition and renovation from the mid-90s.
This year’s debt service rate figured at $.3527, much lower than last year’s $.5557 rate.
The new high school will be paid off in February 2021, while the elementary school will be off the books in July 2015.
Similar to the district, each school witnessed its own progress during the 2003-2004 school year.
Bluffton High School
As Baker studies ISTEP test results from the sophomore class, he shakes his head in amazement.
“As a school, our numbers have been the best ever,” he said. “We set all-time records for Bluffton High School.”
Eighty-three percent of Bluffton sophomores passed the math portion of the test, 15 percentage points higher than the state average, 68 percent.
In language arts, 80 percent passed while the state average was only 68 percent.
Seventy-six percent passed both math and English, above the state’s 60 percent average.
“We’ve just had a banner year,” Baker said. “I’ve just been very proud of how are students focus on the things they need to focus on and don’t waste time on things that are destructive.”
The school’s high ISTEP scores contributed to Bluffton’s high ranking on the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s Indiana Best Buy Guide.
The guide ranked Bluffton 73rd out of 346 schools, putting the high school in the top 21 percent, its highest ranking in four years.
The Chamber of Commerce uses a school’s ISTEP results, graduation rate, attendance rate, SAT scores and at-risk factor to rank schools.
The Chamber of Commerce was not the only outside group to rank Bluffton High School.
A report from the Lilly Endowment stated Bluffton graduates perform above average in college.
The report tracks freshmen performance at Indiana colleges, and over the last two years, Bluffton graduates have scored above the average freshman in English, math, science and social studies courses.
“This report is very important to us,” Baker said. “It’s one thing if (students are) doing well at Bluffton, but we’re also interested how they compare at IU, Purdue, Ball State, Anderson, Bethel and so on.”
Baker attributes much of the student success to the faculty and staff.
“Our staff is just very strong,” he said. “We have some veterans and some young teachers, and they just mix together very well.”
The technology at the high school also helps students success while improving teacher-parent communication, Baker said.
“After three years, we are really starting to utilize and maximize the technology we have here,” Baker said.
Teachers now use a student management computer program that allows them to better communicate with parents by e-mailing them a student’s grade sheet.
Bluffton Middle School
As Bennett thumbs through a large book of student data collected throughout the ‘02-’03 school year, he says his school’s motto is whatever it takes ... and he means it.
“Our teachers, in my view, in this middle school, do more than any staff anywhere, calling parents, tutoring kids, writing notes and agendas, working with kids before and after school,” he said. “Our staff is taking more responsibility for kids learning than what we’ve ever had in the district.”
The middle school established a list of seven procedures staff must follow before failing a student, ranging from notifying parents in writing to having staff visit the student’s home.
The result: fewer failing grades, with this year marking the lowest failing grades ever.
The middle school’s intervention earned its program national recognition in May 2003 in a nationally-circulated principal’s magazine.
“It’s the type of magazine virtually every principal reads,” Bennett said.
An assistant professor at the Citadel in Charleston, S.C., featured six schools with effective intervention programs, and she noted the middle school’s success. The article discusses the intervention program’s success by pointing out that the number of students who failed dropped from 70 to eight in the first year.
Another drastic intervention step Bennett and the staff organized this year revolved around the ISTEP test.
As part of the ISTEP test, students must write about a topic, which constitutes a big part of their grade.
Two years ago, Bennett read every student’s ISTEP essays and discovered they needed more practice.
Bennett spoke with the elementary school, and this year, teachers required students in kindergarten through eighth grade to do four writing assessments.
“Instead of having this type of writing experience four times over the K-12 experience, we’re going to have it 32 times plus the four times it counts for (ISTEP),” Bennett said. “We’re going from no practice to 32.”
Similar to the high school, the middle school also excelled on the ISTEP test this year, a notable job, Bennett said, because the test became more difficult.
What did not become more difficult, however, was parent’s ability to receive information.
The middle school began sending an electronic newsletter to approximately 300 parents this year to keep them better informed.
The staff will build on this next fall by posting the school’s activity and extracurricular calendar online, which will give parents up-to-date information, Bennett said.
Bluffton Elementary School
When Elementary School Principal Tom Gibson thinks about his school’s leadership programs, he says he could not be more proud of the students and staff.
A program spearheaded by Ginny Vogel, the school’s guidance counselor, gives leadership projects to fourth-grade classes.
This year, students raised money for Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, collected food for the Christmas Bureau and donated items to people in Iraq, true signs of progress, Gibson said.
“Educating kids to become productive citizens is not always found in the textbook,” he said. “Sometimes you have to have these leadership or community-service projects that show to be a good person you need to care about your fellow man.”
Not only was Gibson proud of his students’ community service efforts, but this year’s ISTEP scores also impressed him.
Fifty-one percent of third-graders who took the ISTEP finished in the upper quartile of the state, meaning they finished in the 76th-99th percentile.
About 83 percent of students finished in the upper half of the nation in reading, math and language.
Similar to the middle school, elementary students wrote more often because the elementary’s schools main goal this year focused on student writing.
The result: better ISTEP scores.
Gibson said 29 percent more students passed the writing test compared to last year.
Students will continue to work on reading and writing next year, and they will have a new tool to help.
The school will have its first computer lab, filled with 25 networked computers.
The lab will be used to take standard achievement tests and comprehensive reading tests, among other uses.
In the future, the staff might use the lab to teach keyboarding. Some research suggests children should learn to type in third- or fourth-grade instead of fifth- or sixth-grade, Gibson said.
“We haven’t got anything on the agenda to do that at this point, but there may be a time when we’d use it for that.”