GREENFIELD — County residents gathered for the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce’s State of Education luncheon, which allowed superintendents to share updates, achievements and more on each district on February 6.
Retta Livengood, president of the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce, who also spent 12 years on the Greenfield-Central School Board, introduced the four leaders for the afternoon luncheon — Dr. Lisa Lantrip with Community School Corporation of Southern Hancock, Dr. Jack Parker with Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation, Dr. Harold Olin with Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation, and Dr. George Philhower with Community School Corporation of Eastern Hancock.
Community School Corporation of Southern Hancock
Dr. Lantrip kicked off the conversation and said that the Helping One Student To Succeed (HOSTS) program has been been offered to her district’s second and third graders for nine years now. The program allows extra time with a one-on-one volunteer to help with their reading skills. Dr. Lantrip said that those students who have participated in this program have also passed their IREAD tests.
At the high school level, Dr. Lantrip said that they had a graduation rate of 96.9%, and that by being a part of an early college-endorsed program with University of Indianapolis, those seniors graduated with more than 3,000 college credits combined, 29 associate degrees and 30 certifications.
Also, Dr. Lantrip said with the AP classes offered at the high school, scores for the AP tests rose an average of 17% last year.
“We’ve got fabulous teachers at New Palestine High School,” Dr. Lantrip said.
While receiving many grants for different uses, one new implementation this year, Dr. Lantrip said, is the Tiny Dragons Staff Day Care program. The program provides care for the children of staff members from the age of 16 weeks up to four years old, and it just received $200,000 from the state to go toward the program’s needs.
Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation
Dr. Jack Parker has been the superintendent at Mt. Vernon for five years and since then the school corporation has grown by 100 to 150 students each year. With the growth, Dr. Parker said that in 2025 they will have a new building to hold the students of Fortville Elementary and that the current building will be turned into an intermediate school again.
Elementary will consist of grades kindergarten through fourth grade, intermediate will house fifth and sixth graders with the middle school holding seventh and eighth graders and high school remaining the same.
Along with adding room for the growing demographic, Dr. Parker said they are also building a new transportation facility that they plan on moving into over spring break.
“If you’ve seen our bus barn off of Ind. 234, you’ll know we really needed it,” Dr. Parker said. “Our mechanics had to kind of Flat Stanley around the buses just to be able to work on them in that building that was designed for smaller buses.”
With a new demographic study being done, Dr. Parker said that the student population would most likely grow by about 150 students for the next 10 years, meaning they should have the capacity in the schools until 2033 unless something changes.
Dr. Parker said that, despite the study, they can count on the numbers staying the exact same and that they may need to add to the capacity of the high school in the near future, 2027 or 2028.
“That is what we’re focusing on — trying to figure out getting ahead of the future growth and providing capacity for our students all while taking care of our facilities with our stewardship projects to make sure they are in good shape,” Dr. Parker said.
Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation
Dr. Harold Olin said that while the superintendents don’t discuss what they plan to speak about at the luncheon beforehand, he too had some similar bullet points to highlight for Greenfield-Central schools, such as making sure there is room as the student population grows.
Dr. Olin said that just a couple years ago, they only had two preschool classes but are now up to seven classes total, teaching 140 students between the ages of three and five. They are currently looking into expansion possibilities for care for staff’s children.
For the second year in a row, Dr. Olin said all eight schools within the district have been designated as family friendly at the high school level by the Indiana Department of Education, which is based on feedback from staff, students and parents.
Addressing questions about the construction at the high school, Dr. Olin said that their auditorium project which will hold more than 1,400 students and is aiming to open around September of this year.
With their commitment to school safety, Dr. Olin said they have recently added two new school officers, making a total of five officers for the eight school buildings. For three positions, Dr. Olin said they continue a partnership with Greenfield Police Department and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department to have off-duty police officers in those facilities.
“It’s really a proactive effort on our part to try to provide that peace of mind to our families that if there were an event, we can respond to that very quickly,” Dr. Olin said.
Other accomplishments Dr. Olin highlighted included financials, such as a $1.6 million grant for school-based mental health support and a literacy grant just under $500,000.
Community School Corporation of Eastern Hancock
Dr. George Philhower said that all their work at Eastern Hancock schools is driven by their strategic plan, which promises joy, connection, growth and success.
This past year, Dr. Philhower said that in order to help ensure joy in the classroom they hired a joy integration specialist, whose job is to “spice up” classroom lessons to make them more enjoyable for students. For example, instead of just learning about Paul Revere from the textbook, he rode by the classrooms and yelled “The British are coming!”
“Emotion cements learning. So anytime when you give kids an emotional experience, then the chances that they are going to remember the stuff they are learning increases,” Dr. Philhower said.
Dr. Philhower said the three other promises follow suit of joy when students know they are with people they love and know love them, can themselves grow, and see themselves be successful.
While Dr. Philhower said academic excellence and proficiency is important, it is not the end of the students’ stories. Every grade level from kindergarten to 12th grade explores six different careers.
“We’re very intentional about helping kids think about the Monday after graduation,” said Dr. Philhower, meaning how they help prepare life for students after school.
Dr. Philhower said that 25% of their students are doing work-based learning, and is always trying to find ways to expand the program.
Coming Together
Dr. Parker said that being able to work together as all four districts of the county, they are able to help build a career center, Amplify Hancock. Dr. Parker said that the students who get vocational learning have to go outside of Hancock County in order to receive that education, which also makes it hard to motivate a student to learn vocational skills.
With the county already agreeing to help fund part of Amplify Hancock, Dr. Parker said that the four schools have been working on developing programming within their schools to bring to the career center so that when it opens in fall of 2026, they will fill the center with 400 students.
“We’re very proud of that work and the collaboration that we have among the four school districts,” Dr. Parker said.
School superintendents gather for the State of Education in Hancock County. Tuesday, February 6, 2024.
