Monroe County election board finishes final prep for Tuesday, May 7 primaries

By around 7:30 p.m. on Monday night, all but three of the 29 polling locations for Primary Election Day on May 7 had checked in with Monroe County election division staff at Election Central to confirm they were set for the next day’s voting.

Election Central is the old Johnson’s Hardware building at 7th and Madison streets.

Polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 6 p.m. Continue reading “Monroe County election board finishes final prep for Tuesday, May 7 primaries”

MCCSC board wants public to mull elementary school merger, meant to balance socio-economic status

Responding to a request from the Monroe County Community School Corporation board, this week district superintendent Jeff Hauswald presented a possible plan to merge the attendance areas for two pairs of elementary schools.

The idea would be to divide the grades for the bigger attendance areas between the two existing buildings for each pair of schools.

The purpose of merging the schools would be to improve the balance of socio-economic status (SES) among students in different elementary school buildings.

The key metric for SES of students is defined by the Indiana Department of Education—as the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch, based on income eligibility guidelines.

One merger would involve consolidating the attendance areas for Childs Elementary and Templeton Elementary. At the end of a three-year transition period, Childs would serve the combined attendance areas for pre-kindergarten through grade 2. Templeton would serve grade 3 through grade 6.

A second merger, which could be implemented by itself or combined with the first one, would consolidate the attendance areas for University Elementary and Fairview Elementary. At the end of a three-year transition period, University would serve the combined attendance areas for pre-kindergarten through grade 3. Fairview would serve grade 4 to grade 6. Continue reading “MCCSC board wants public to mull elementary school merger, meant to balance socio-economic status”