CROTHERSVILLE — Matthew Stites’ excitement about school is contagious.
As he walked through the front door of Crothersville Elementary School for Monday’s open house, he hugged Principal Whitney Reinhart, who greeted him by name and with a smile.
He then walked down the hallway with his Mimi, Lora Bush, and once he arrived at Tara Bedwell’s classroom, he gave her a hug.
He found a desk with his name on it and flashed a big smile and became very excited.
“I just get to see the teachers again. That’s the whole point of it — teachers,” the second-grader said of why he was so excited.
“He just goes through every morning and says, ‘Good morning, ladies,’” Bush said, smiling.
He’s also happy to see his classmates, many of whom he already knows, and he’s ready to get back to learning in the classroom.
“That’s all I even want,” he said of being back in school, as Tuesday was the first day of the 2022-23 school year for Crothersville students.
After a summer of going to parks, including one of his favorites, Brown County State Park, and having picnics, Stites is ready to turn his attention to school.
He said his favorite subjects are technology and physical education. So where does lunch rate?
“It doesn’t rate very high. He’s a picky eater,” Bush said with another smile.
She said she appreciates her grandson’s excitement about school because not all kids like to go.
“This is him from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep,” she said. “Now, it’s going to be 100% more, until after the first day, he’ll be going, ‘I’m so tired.’”
Reinhart is beginning her second year as principal of CES. She enjoyed greeting students and their families during Monday’s open house, which gave them an opportunity to meet their teacher and drop off school supplies in the classroom and visit the Kona Ice stand outside.
She said she feels fortunate to start a new school year with pretty much the same staff, especially since some other schools around the country are scrambling to find teachers.
“How blessed it was this summer, we have our full staff from last year,” Reinhart said.
“We did move a third grade teacher to another position of special education to expand that programming, and we were able to bring on a new teacher,” she said. “Applications and résumés, the interest was still there. It was just a very positive thing instead of what you’re seeing on social media, so we feel proud of that. Staffing-wise, I just am counting my blessings that we didn’t have the same problem the rest of the world is having. It’s a big deal.”
Sara Salas is teaching special education full time, and Danielle Liedberg took Salas’ previous position as a third grade teacher.
“We feel we’re going to be able to meet a lot more needs there,” Reinhart said of special education. “That has not been a full-time position in several years, and it is very needed. That’s a game changer.”
She also reported CES had a very big wait list for On My Way Pre-K this school year. Preschool teacher Kelly Schmelzle will have two aides this year to help with the 21 4-year-olds. Normally, the class averages 15 kids.
“We’re at full capacity in there with students, and then we added another aide in there to meet those needs,” Reinhart said.
A new initiative to help elementary teachers meet the needs of students is implementing WIN time. That stands for “What I Need” and is a 30-minute block of time every school day for instructional intervention for kindergarten through fifth grade teachers.
That will involve zooming in on some of those instructional pieces, setting goals together for English/language arts and working with reading specialists, Reinhart said.
“We do have a reading specialist through Title I services. This is when they provide reading help. This is when aides are going into the room,” she said. “Of course, state assessment scores always have to do with things and trying something new all of the time. We knew we had a great resource in Brenda Ballinger as a reading specialist on our staff and how we could best utilize her. She plays a big part in that.”
For the students, a new robotics program will continue. In the summer, some kids participated in a two-week camp to learn all about robotics.
“We are excited to hopefully have a competitive team this year at the elementary level,” Reinhart said. “We don’t know exactly what that’ll look like, but we’re hoping that (camp) sparked enough interest to get us rolling this school year.”
At Crothersville Junior-Senior High School, a big change for 2022-23 is high school students taking more classes at the school and not having to travel to Austin High School.
The only time they go there is if they are enrolled in The University Academy, which is an early college program that gives students an opportunity to take college-level classes and earn an associate degree from Ivy Tech Community College while in high school.
Students also can still take classes through C4 Columbus Area Career Connection. For The University Academy and C4, students have to be bused for insurance purposes, Principal Doug Ballinger said.
Not having as many classes at Austin will help Crothersville in terms of less time on the road and less transportation issues. Ballinger said last school year, there were 10 trips a day from Crothersville to Austin.
As far as other classes at the school, Ballinger was able to bring back art and industrial arts last school year, and those return this year and have been expanded.
Along with introduction to art, the art classes will include drawing, painting and sculpting. Plus, there are two middle school art classes.
The industrial arts classes include introduction to manufacturing, advanced manufacturing and industrial technology maintenance.
“For our clientele, I just felt like it was important that we get those kinds of classes here,” Ballinger said.
Math offerings have been expanded, too. Through a partnership with Crossroads Math, Crothersville students have been able to take geometry, algebra, algebra 2 and seventh and eighth grade math. Now, they also can take calculus and precalculus.
“They don’t have to go down there (Austin) to take those classes. They can take those here,” Ballinger said.
Also, there are now two graduation pathways for agriculture — horticulture and landscape — and three levels of Spanish classes can be taken at Crothersville.
In recent years for Spanish, Elevate K-12 has offered a live teacher via a virtual format, and an aide was in the classroom to monitor the students. This school year, it’s that same format, but the teacher is through Ivy Tech, which is cheaper, faster and helps the school more in different areas, Ballinger said.
Integrated chemistry and physics is another new offering, and so is business math, which is a financial literacy class.
Plus, Athletic Director Jacob Dunn has taken on the college and career class and community service class along with PE, health and technology.
“We’re definitely maximizing everybody’s time and the classes they are doing,” Ballinger said of the junior-senior high school teachers.
New staff members include Hanna Hunsucker as a sixth grade teacher, Amber Hancher as the guidance counselor and Ellen Prince as the administrative assistant.