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(07/25/10 11:29pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Lake Monroe is not safe from watercraft accidents. On June 28, 51-year-old Susan Collier and her grandson, 8-year-old Gage Pruett, died following a boat collision. These were just two of the three fatalities that have taken place on the lake in 2010.Susan Collier and her husband, James Collier, decided to take Pruett fishing on their 19-foot Ranger bass fishing boat.That same day, 19-year-olds Winston K. Wood, Michael Marietta and Matthew Holmberg took their 23-foot Cobalt runabout speedboat out around Lake Monroe.The two boats collided just off Water’s Edge at The Pointe, which resulted in the death of Collier and her grandson.Accidents leading to fatalities have occurred in past years, too. According to the Department of Natural Resources’ reports, there have been 13 total watercraft accidents on Lake Monroe since 2008. In 2009, there was one watercraft accident on Lake Monroe that resulted in a fatality when a person fell overboard.But for the most recent accident, reports from the DNR and other federal agencies are in the process of concluding that this incident was unintentional for both parties.“This is not a clear case of someone being at fault and the other one not,” Beaver said. “This was just a tragic accident.”Toxicology reports did not indicate that Wood, Marietta and Holmberg had consumed any alcohol that day, DNR public information officer Angela Goldman said.“This all boils down to operator inattention,” Goldman said. “When it gets right down to it, neither saw the other one.”After three weeks of research and investigation, the DNR is almost ready to turn their report of the incident over to the Monroe County Prosecutor’s Office, Goldman said.“We’ve talked to all of the people involved and gotten everybody’s version,” Goldman said. “Now we turn it in to the prosecutor for review, and they determine what will happen.”The DNR’s report of the incident involved a debriefing of all parties involved in the boat accident as well as witnesses’ accounts and reports of the boat accident, Goldman said.But there are still a few more steps that need to be taken.“We need to go back to the crash scene, use GPS location and document everything,” Goldman said.Reconstructing a boating accident requires an in-depth analysis of each piece of damage incurred by both boats and tries to prove exactly how the boats collided, Goldman said.“One thing about a boat crash versus a vehicle crash is you don’t have indicators left on the road,” Goldman said. “Vehicles don’t move after an accident, and the boats certainly float away.”Both boats were taken to the Fairfax service area, where conservation officers Tim Beaver and David Reese inspected the boats for two days to determine the angle of impact on each boat, Beaver said. The report showed that both boats were moving when the Cobalt speedboat hit the back end of the Ranger fishing boat at an angle, Beaver said. The difference in height might have been a contributing factor to the collision.“The main difference is that the Ranger is smaller — it’s more of a lower profile and closer to the water,” Beaver said. “The Colbalt is more of a pleasure-type boat and stands off of the water much taller.”
(06/21/10 12:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sitting on a cushioned black chair with iPhone in hand, junior Max Waples waited on his porch for signs of a funnel cloud.“If it got bad, I figured I would go inside,” Waples said.This seemed to be the common mentality of many IU students as websites and radio stations sounded the alarm for a tornado warning throughout Monroe County. Junior Emily Kitchen said she was concerned about the tornado warning on Monday, but was no longer worried on Tuesday due to the day’s calm weather. Kitchen said that Tuesday’s weather made her want to sit outside and wait for the storm to brew.“I was worried because it looked pretty bad the other night, so I went in my basement,” Kitchen said. “And I didn’t have cable, so I didn’t know when it would be over.”Despite the ominous weather, patrons at The Runcible Spoon Cafe and Restaurant did not feel the need to seek shelter, restaurant manager Regen O’Neill said. “Out of the tables that were occupied, no one felt the urge to move,” O’Neill said. “We have a basement, and we told them that was an option.”However, proprietors took necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their patrons.“We had the TV on, and we kept an eye on what was going on outside,” O’Neill said. “We have a lot of windows, and we encouraged people to move away from the windows.”The weather did prevent students from returning to Bloomington. Kathryn Smoots works in Indianapolis as an intern for the WRTV Channel 6 weather department and had to stay at work for an extra hour until the tornado warning expired.“I got back to Bloomington around 10:45,” Smoots said. “Normally, I get back around 8.”The weather during junior Michelle Wiertel’s drive back to Bloomington forced her to pull over on State Road 37. “It was hailing so hard we had to pull over halfway back to Bloomington and wait for it to stop,” Wiertel said. “We were stopped for a good 15 minutes.”However, the day before, Wiertel and her roommates watched the storm from her porch in Brownstone Terrace Apartments.“It was crazy how dark it got,” Wiertel said. “We were lovin’ it.”The storms that came with the tornado warnings Monday and Tuesday knocked trees down throughout the Bloomington campus and damaged personal property, said Lt. Craig Munroe of the IU Police Department. “A branch went through the back windshield of a car that was parked in the IUPD parking lot,” Munroe said. “Trees were blown down, but that’s fairly common with old trees.”The overall feel throughout the campus was one more of interest than actual fear.“Even from the car, it was really, really fun to watch,” Wiertel said.
(06/09/10 11:17pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bloomington first boycotted Arizona in 1993. Now, the city is boycotting the Grand Canyon state again.The Bloomington City Council has decided to boycott now because of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s bill that would require legal immigrants to carry documents proving their legal status while giving Arizona authorities the right to question anyone they “reasonably suspect” of being an illegal alien. Councilwoman Susan Sandberg said the 1993 boycott was implemented after Arizona voters decided to reject Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Without clearly defining what constitutes reasonable suspicion, the members of City Council argue the new bill essentially legalizes racial profiling and could ultimately lead to more significant civil rights violations, Sandberg said. “We understand there’s a problem,” she said, “but you don’t go violating your constitution or eroding civil rights to fix it.”The boycott includes not sending city members to meetings in Arizona, refusing to enter contracts with companies that are Arizona-based and reviewing current contracts with companies in Bloomington whose corporate offices are in Arizona. At the core of both these boycotts were civil rights issues. Councilman Chris Sturbaum said the actions implemented by Arizona’s bill are unconstitutional and should not be accepted by any community in America.“This is a national issue because these are national values and amendments that protect individual civil rights are everyone’s business. This is our country’s issue,” Sturbaum said. By stamping and sending a letter of intent to boycott, Bloomington joins the ranks of communities including Boulder, Colo., Los Angeles, Seattle, Oakland, Calif., San Francisco, Boston and St. Paul, Minn., that have also implemented boycotts against Arizona.Critics question the impact that the Bloomington boycott will have, but Sandberg said the message is more important.“Do I think what we do will matter to people in Arizona?” Sandberg said. “Quite frankly, I don’t. It’s more of a symbolic measure, and it’s been noticed by the rest of the country.”Since Bloomington’s announcement about the boycott, City Council members have received both angry and supportive statements from Bloomington residents.“For me, personally, the purpose is about the civil right erosions that are contained in the bill,” Sandberg said. “And I think that’s getting lost in the boycott.”
(06/02/10 11:53pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When it comes to green farming, Will Allen, a 2008 MacArthur Fellow and self-described urban agriculturalist, goes above and beyond the call of duty.With his innovative farming techniques, Allen has brought organic farming to the urbanized areas of Milwaukee and Chicago, providing lower-income families with high-quality foods necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Allen was listed in TIME Magazine’s May issue as one of the “100 most influential people in the world,” and on Thursday, Allen will be the keynote speaker for the “Food in Bloom: Cross Pollination and Cultivation of Food Systems, Cultures and Methods” conference at IU.Raised as a farmer’s son, Allen grew up with the knowledge of how to grow and maintain a wide variety of crops, said Jim Price, public affairs coordinator for Allen’s non-profit company, Growing Power.“He wanted his own retail farm stand and found a place on the north side of Milwaukee that was the last piece of property in the city that was zoned for agriculture,” Price said.With freedom to grow his own crops, Allen began to improve the poor condition of the urban soil with techniques his father taught him, Price said.“He loves to say, ‘Good farming all starts with the soil,’” Price said. The hallmark of Allen’s innovative farming techniques is his uniquely composed soil. Using everything from leftover kitchen scraps to waste products of microbreweries, Allen was able to create a unique organic soil rich in nutrients, vital to the successful growth of his crops, Price said.“We use all kinds of organic waste, but we don’t like to think of it as waste because we put it to very good use,” Price said. After the compost is formed, Allen’s soil goes through a secondary refinement process that involves worm bins and depositories that make the soil more sustainable for crops, Price said.“We have millions and millions of worms here working day and night to turn already good compost into really, really great compost,” Price said. “It’s the most extraordinary fertilizer available.”After a while, Allen’s farming techniques caught the eyes of neighborhood children who wanted to know how Allen got his crops to grow so well in the middle of the city, Price said.Allen saw an opportunity.“He took it upon himself to become a trainer and started a little group with these kids and called it Youth Corps,” Price said. Youth Corps takes children of all ages out of the public school system and teaches them not only urban agriculture but life and leadership skills as well, Price said.The Food in Bloom convention will feature Allen as its keynote speaker and the only presenter that is free to the public, University Communications representative Steve Chaplin said.The 12th annual meeting is a collaboration between the Association for the Study of Food and Society, the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society, and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition and will feature four days of food science presentations and organizational meetings as well as tours of farms and food-related businesses.This is the first time the conference will be held at IU and will include presentations from professors and researchers, giving students and other faculty members a chance to present innovative research as well as informative lectures, Chaplin said.“For the general public, the real opportunity is to hear Will Allen speak,” Chaplin said. “Hopefully, it will leave you with not only knowledge of growing your own food but to leave inspired to work toward a more sustainable and economic system in your environment.”
(05/26/10 10:44pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Oftentimes, when students take outdoor trips, there are no first aid problems, said Kim Collins, assistant coordinator for Outdoor Adventures.“But sometimes people have an allergic reaction, or they cut themselves,” she said. Through an IU Outdoor Adventures class that will take place Saturday, students will become certified in wilderness first aid and learn all the techniques to take care of an injury or ailment, should one occur.Students can call Outdoor Adventures to sign up for the class or register on OneStart, Collins said.The two-day class involves a 20-hour first-aid component that enables individuals to deal with potential emergencies in the backcountry, Collins said.“Instead of people using first aid in the front country, they would be using it in an area where they are one hour or more away from an EMS,” Collins said.The course is broken into two 10-hour day segments and utilizes scenarios and hands-on teaching so participants can practice first-aid administration in a non-emergency environment, Collins said.Lessons also include how to communicate with a victim before and after administering aid, said David Calvin, instructor of the Wilderness First Aid course and former director of Outdoor Adventures. “We need to teach measures in how to communicate with participants to get them to be open and honest with you,” Calvin said. “People in general don’t want to tell someone they’re really hurt or injured and will try and take care of it themselves.”Calvin has taught the course for Outdoor Adventures since 2000 and saw it as an opportunity to better prepare student leaders for hardships they could face in the backcountry. In order to be eligible for a student leader position, students are required to be certified in wildlife first aid.“In the woods, 911 is not that close,” Calvin said. “I thought that in the interest of the University, I should become an instructor and have our student leaders better trained than most.”The course is broken into four training modules that include patient assessment, fractures and sprains, hot and cold issues and soft tissue injuries. Participants take quizzes after each module and then a final exam to become officially certified, Calvin said.“I expect students in the class to do well,” Calvin said. “I am a big believer that it is my responsibility to teach them and their responsibility to be receptive to the lessons.” Students can also sign up for the course and take it as a School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation credit, Collins said.“The course exists in the schedule of classes for IU,” Collins said. “All people need to do is call our office, and if they want to take it for credit, they can sign up like it’s any other class.”However, the classes often have more than just students in attendance, Collins said.“You’ll see a lot of people come in from out of town,” Collins said. “There’s a mix of professionals from many different fields as well as students.”The fusion of lectures with hands-on scenarios makes the class enjoyable for participants as well as the instructor, Calvin said. “What I like about it is half the time we’re outside of the classroom,” Calvin said. “The scenarios take place outside, and that’s the beauty of the class.”Wilderness First Aid opens doors for meeting new people, which is one of the things that make the course unique, Collins said.“You spend 20 hours practicing skills that hopefully you will not have to use,” Collins said, “but you meet lots of great people and do lots of great things.”
(05/20/10 12:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After entering Mira Salon and Spa, a customer is greeted by a receptionist and a small sign that reads, “Thank You for helping us contribute to the oil spill clean-up.”It appears there is something different about this salon as Anna Stoddard, a Mira Salon and Spa employee, sweeps the wooden floors. She makes sure to separate hair from the other trash that is collected. In fact, hair at Mira has its own trash can.Hair salons and pet grooming facilities across the nation have been collecting hair clippings to send to the Gulf of Mexico to help absorb oil from the hazardous tank explosion that occurred April 20. Bloomington is no exception. For the past two weeks, Heather Singleton, the owner of Mira Hair Salon, has been separating salon trash from hair into two 30-gallon tubs in the back of the salon and just sent out her first barrel last week. “I heard about this from a client and I said, ‘Oh wow, what a great idea,’” Singleton said. The ambiance at Delilah’s Pet Shop is slightly different. Instead of soothing music and humming hair dryers, customers are welcomed by the excited barks of puppies and the subtle sound of a fur shaver. Leslie Henderson-Miller, co-owner of Delilah’s Pet Shop, heard about the oil spill and knew that something had to be done.A friend told Henderson-Miller about the nationwide hair collection. The idea inspired her to start her own separation of trash from hair. “We go through it (fur) like it’s water,” Henderson-Miller said. “We can easily fill up a 30-gallon trash bag in a day.”However, she did not know where the hair went or how to ship it out. “We’re collecting it, and we’re going to keep it in bags in the back,” Henderson-Miller said. “We just have no idea where we send it.”Singleton’s salon has been sending out hair clippings through a nonprofit ecological charity, Matter of Trust.Matter of Trust was established in 1998 and concentrates its efforts on man-made surplus, natural surplus and eco-education, according to the Matter of Trust website. “There are over 300,000 salons in the US alone,” wrote Lisa Gautier, founder of Matter of Trust. “This is a community-building and extremely pleasant way for the general public to be involved in helping the environment.”The nonprofit agency created a YouTube video showing various salons and pet shops throughout California collecting and boxing hair to send to Matter of Trust. After the first week, the agency had received more than 400,000 pounds of hair donations to send to the Gulf of Mexico, according to a May 4 press release from the agency.“The public response has been amazing,” Gautier said in a press release. “We are getting hundreds of nylon and hair donation registrations an hour.”Donors are asked to register through the Matter of Trust’s website so the agency can ensure the hair is being sent to areas that need it most.After receiving the hair, volunteers stuff it into nylon stockings, which are then tied together to make “brooms” that surround and contain sections of the gulf while soaking up oil.The act of collecting the hair — especially for salons — is simple, Singleton said. “We’re cutting hair anyway, so why not just collect it as well?” Singleton said. “I mean, how inexpensive and effective is that?”Other pet groomers in Bloomington have caught on to this trend. Doggie Styles Canine Salon has just begun collecting hair for Matter of Trust, but has not sent any hair to the Gulf Coast yet, said Kelie Borhan, co-owner and groomer of Doggie Styles Canine Salon. “It is something we can really do to make a difference,” Borhan said. “We definitely have the hair for it.” For Henderson-Miller, the hair collection movement goes beyond the short-term repercussions of cleaning up the Gulf Coast.“I can’t see how people wouldn’t want to save things for future generations,” Henderson-Miller said. “Save it not only for yourself, but for your children.”
(05/19/10 11:25pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With its skyscraper-like power plants and steel mills, it’s hard to miss Gary, a city known for its air pollution. However, this reputation may begin to dissipate, along with the smog that surrounds the city.Governor Mitch Daniels announced April 30 that all 92 counties in Indiana met federal air quality standards for the first time in the state’s history. After they were labeled as “nonattainment” areas, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management focused on Lake and Porter counties to help implement new air quality standards so they could meet the federal requirements, said Rob Elstro, public information officer for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. There are different levels of nonattainment that a county can be labeled, which includes minor, severe and moderate levels of nonattainment. The level of nonattainment determines the type of action necessary to alleviate that label, Elstro said. “When an area is put into nonattainment, there are certain prescribed actions a state needs to take to show they will comply with EPA standards now and for the future,” Elstro said. Air quality is in part measured by an eight-hour ozone exposure standard. The EPA will look at the eight-hour average of ozone exposure over a 24-hour period and determine an appropriate ozone exposure level that is then used to determine which counties are in attainment of the ozone exposure standards, Elstro said. In past years, the EPA looked at one-hour spikes of ozone exposure that measured its short-term effects, Elstro said.“We’re looking more at the long-term aspects of ozone exposure as opposed to one-hour spikes,” Elstro said. “It’s more restrictive because when you’re looking at an eight-hour average, there’s more ozone exposure that’s shown than if you’re just looking at one hour.”While ozone is advantageous as a protective layer in the atmosphere, it can be detrimental if humans are over-exposed to ozone chemicals on the Earth’s surface, School of Public and Environmental Affairs professor Philip Stevens said.“Ozone at a lower level is a reactive molecule,” Stevens said. “If you breathe it in deeply, it can react with the lungs and inflame and swell the lower respiratory system.”Counties throughout Indiana have implemented programs that encourage residents to only get gas and mow their lawns at night because ozone reacts with the sun to make the chemical ozone smog, Stevens said.“Ozone is a photochemical smog,” Stevens said. “Precursors such as fuel emissions need to mix with sunlight in order to make the chemical ozone.”Urban areas tend to have a higher concentration of poor air quality than rural areas of Indiana. In these urban areas, programs such as vehicle emissions testing need to be implemented in order to attain an appropriate level of air quality, Stevens said.In previous years, counties around Louisville had been labeled as areas of nonattainment, but now that they have met the air quality standards, programs like vehicle emissions testing are no longer necessary, Stevens said.“They used to have vehicle emissions testing, but it’s a costly program, and now that they have met the air quality standards it’s no longer needed,” Stevens said.However, air quality standards can change on a yearly basis, and counties have to not only maintain proper air quality standards, but also ensure they can continue to meet air quality standards for the future, Elstro said. Smog Watch, http://www.in.gov/apps/idem/smog, is a website set up by the IDEM that provides Indiana citizens with information about revisions to air quality standards put out by the EPA.Currently, emissions standards require counties to have an ozone emission rate of less than 85 parts per billion over an eight-hour period, Elstro said. The EPA is now considering a stricter quality standard that would lower the amount of permissible ozone emissions to 75 parts per billion, according to a report issued by the American Lung Association.With this new standard, more than 600 counties nationwide would be labeled as nonattainment areas, according to a chart issued by the EPA.However, programs implemented in the past have helped dramatically improve air quality. The NOx Budget Trading Program was created to reduce the number of fossil fuels that are burned from power plants and other combustible sources that are considered major contributors to ozone nonattainment in the United States, according to the EPA’s website. While programs like the NOx Budget Trading Program and vehicle emissions testing have contributed to major air quality improvements, ultimately the greatest factor in reducing emissions comes from our everyday activities, Stevens said.“We’ll see how states respond to the new air standards,” Stevens said. “Ultimately, reductions from all parties involved are needed to improve air quality.”
(11/23/09 1:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Finding ways to improve the education of inner-city students is not a new endeavor. Educators have made the assertion that improving education in inner-city schools extends beyond the classroom and that the best solution is to remove the students from the environment entirely.This is the vision of IU law professor Kevin Brown.But it comes with a twist.The DuBois Institute, a public boarding school focused on the educational advancement of Indiana public school students, would be located in Ghana and would eventually house and educate approximately 400 students grades six through 12.“These kids have the academic ability to excel,” Brown said. “They’re just growing up in an environment that won’t help them be successful.”As the founder and director of the IU Summer in Ghana Program, Brown sent more than 100 students to Ghana and noticed that the culture shock of living in a developing country had a significant, lifelong effect on his students, Brown said.This social and economic shock would be the ideal effect for the prospective students of the DuBois Institute.“They’re not going to be the poor, inner-city kids,” Brown said. “They’ll be the wealthy ones with tons of opportunities.”The students would enter the institute in either Grade 6 or 7 with an initial commitment of attending the school for three years, Brown said.Ideally, students would complete 12th grade at the institute.“If we got them there for six years, not only would they graduate, we would be able to put these kids into college,” Brown said.The curriculum taught in the school would meet the Indiana Academic Standards while exceeding the Core 40 requirements. The principal and classroom teachers would be licensed educators from Indiana and initially commit to stay in Ghana for a minimum of three years, according to the presentation outline of the DuBois Institute to the Indiana Public School Board.Trips will also be arranged for the students to see other countries throughout Africa, and ideally students will travel to the Middle East to get a complete international experience, Brown said.“You don’t even know what it means to be an American until you go overseas,” Brown said. “Our goal is to make them special people.”One of the advantages of the Ghana boarding school is it comes free of charge to taxpayers, Brown said.The entire cost for attending the DuBois Institute after enrolling three full classes would be between $8,000 and $12,000 per year per student, an amount comparable to the $13,357 that IPS currently pays annually per pupil.“Public boarding schools in America generally run about $35,000 per child per year. That’s too expensive for these kids,” Brown said. “We’re trying to get the state to redirect funds from the U.S. to this school. That would cover clothing, room and board and round trip airfare.”In order for the DuBois Institute to be founded as a state-created school, Brown has to meet with the Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. Tony Bennett, to discuss changing state legislation to include an international public boarding school, Brown said. Notable supporters of the DuBois Institute include Jim Morris, future director of the United Nations food program, and Samuel Obeng, professor of linguistics and Director of IU’s African Studies Program, who has a direct connection with the president of Ghana, John Evans Atta.“If you can’t get the best minds together to create the ideal educational program, then roll up the tent – we’re done.” Brown said. “It can’t be done.”If the DuBois Institute gets the appropriate legislation from the Indiana Department of Education, it would be the first international public boarding school directed specifically at inner-city kids.“We have the political presence in Ghana, and we have the academic talent here,” Brown said. “These kids are going to be truly extraordinary people.”
(11/18/09 3:03am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Oregon-Davis school board voted Monday to approve a contractual agreement with Church, Church, Hittle and Antrim law firm to represent it in an attempt to recover fiscal damages from the Indiana State Teachers’ Association Insurance Trust.Oregon-Davis, along with the Delphi Community School District, has received board approval to pursue a lawsuit, and both expect more school districts to follow, Oregon-Davis superintendent Steve Disney said.The trust was taken over by the National Education Administration in May after facing a $67 million deficit in insurance claims. It was the first time a state teachers’ union has made such a request to the NEA.After the NEA’s takeover of the teacher union, administration trustee Ed Sullivan assured school districts that they would be compensated for their losses.At press time, Sullivan was unavailable for comment. Teachers believe that in doing this, the administration has also taken over the financial responsibilities of the trust. However, teachers have been met with little to no cooperation.“We’ve been trying to get cooperation from NEA leadership, and they have not followed through with meetings and have not answered our questions, so we’re looking at other channels to remedy the situation,” Disney said.An insurance consultant for Oregon-Davis said the school district is estimated to be owed between $300,000 and $500,000.“For a little school district, that’s significant,” Disney said.In a memorandum issued to school districts involved with the insurance trust, Sullivan proposes an approach where the schools could reach a uniform agreement with the trust. “I propose a settlement of all school corporations ... under which the trust would pay some amount of money to the school corporation claimants,” the memorandum states. “These amounts would be financed by interest-free loans to the ISTA.”However, Disney, along with other superintendents, said they have been waiting long enough and that more serious action is needed from the administration.“NEA has a lot of money,” Disney said. “They can step up to the plate.”
(11/12/09 3:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Families across the country are opening their doors to high school exchange students interested in spending either a semester or an academic year in America. Organizations such as the STS Foundation accept applications from students in more than 40 countries around the world and find a compatible family for them to stay with in America.The STS Foundation sent exchange students to high schools throughout Indiana, including Noblesville, Marion County, Zionsville and West Lafayette.This year, Bloomington High School South is host to five exchange students through other exchange student programs, such as the Council of International Exchange and Education and the Aspect Foundation, BHSS Assistant Principal Christina Adduci said. “We accept about 10 to 20 applications for foreign exchange students,” Adduci said. “We accept six, and our spots are already filled by May for the next year.”Students stay with families in the community who have contacted the exchange programs. BHSS also offers English support classes, but Adduci said a lot of the students don’t take them.“Students primarily have a junior year curriculum and they’ve all really excelled in them across the board,” Adduci said. Exchange students are also encouraged to participate in school sports, clubs and other activities that the high school has to offer in order to get the most from their stay in America.When considering an application, the STS foundation looks at many factors, including the students’ academic achievement and proficiency in the English language, said David Keating, regional coordinator of STS for Illinois, Michigan and Indiana.“We want to make sure our students are in the highest caliber,” Keating said. “We are very sure our students are the best they can be.”The application process for students interested in coming to America starts a year before they intend to leave and involves writing an extensive essay and an interview with the parents of the exchange students.“Some of the students request a region they want to go to, but we cannot guarantee a region,” Keating said. “Being an exchange student is all about being prepared to adjust to any lifestyle.”Ultimately, Adduci said the exchange process is beneficial for both the exchange student and the students at BHSS.“It works both ways,” Adduci said. “Our students at South are exposed to students from different cultures, and there are also a lot of opportunities for those students to get involved in our interesting community.”
(11/06/09 4:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Public hearings took place throughout Indiana this week to discuss the teacher-licensing proposal that has been a major concern for both educators and administrators.More than 1,000 Hoosiers submitted testimonies concerning the proposal either electronically or in person at hearings in Scottsburg, Rochester and Indianapolis, said Cam Savage, director of communications for the Indiana Department of Education.Representatives from the state department of education were present at each hearing to collect input from concerned citizens; however, a lot of the issues presented had already been discussed by the department.“Many of the issues presented have already been resolved,” Savage said. “But another big piece were complaints from the schools of education in various forms.”IU School of Education Dean Gerardo Gonzalez arrived in Indianapolis the morning of the hearing to deliver his testimony at the Indiana State Library, and he said he was not disappointed with the turnout, nor was he discouraged by the testimonies issued.Everyone who provided testimony was given five minutes to speak. The hearing, which was originally scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., ended closer to 4 p.m.Gonzalez said there were about 300 people at the hearing.Many concerns were addressed, but one in particular was stressed by most of the people there. “My big concern were the comments that were reinforced that these rules would do the opposite of what proponents are saying is needed,” Gonzalez said. Worries of the speakers at the hearing ranged from the increase in content knowledge, to the deregulation of licensure that would impose an unprecedented level on the curriculums of educators.“They expressed concern about the rule and process,” Gonzalez said. “They need to slow it down and have more consultation with educators about all of the significant changes. ... They need to be dialogued.”Those who were not able to attend the public hearings submitted testimonies online expressing their concerns about elements of the proposal.“We have to be very careful about watering down some of the certification levels for teaching and administration,” said Don Alkire, principal of Martinsville High School, who submitted his testimony online.Alkire believes one of the core processes to becoming a qualified teacher or administrator lies in the required teaching method courses that are essential to an education degree. “There are rigorous training programs and certification guidelines that have to do with education training that are very important with what would make up a strong educational teacher,” Alkire said. “Not to say other people can’t be effective school leaders, but they still need areas of background in school administrative methods.”Conversations expressing concern about the licensing proposal have been going on throughout the state at both the high school and collegiate level.“I would expect that there would be a lot of conversation at the university level about teachers,” Alkire said. “And rightfully so.”The hearings showed that this issue extends beyond the realm of the schools of education, and the standards board need to consider the comments made by Hoosiers. “The spirit of the law is that people effected ... have a chance to comment and those are to be taken seriously,” Gonzalez said. “The standard board will have to take comments seriously and incorporate them into the next revision.”
(10/27/09 3:59am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Indiana Department of Education will have three public hearings throughout the state to address citizens’ testimonies concerning the new teacher-licensing proposal to be implemented by the state department.The proposal, put out by superintendent of public instruction Dr. Tony Bennett includes shifting the focus away from how secondary educators teach a subject to what is being taught by the teacher as well as allowing more flexibility in hiring superintendents and principals.Despite the Indiana Professional Standard’s vote of 15-4 in favor of the proposal, educators, board members and citizens still have major concerns.The state has set up three separate public hearing dates in Rochester, Scottsburg and Indianapolis for Hoosiers to attend.Gerardo Gonzalez, dean of the IU School of Education, is attending the public hearing in Indianapolis on Nov. 2, where he will present a testimony commenting on the educator-licensing proposal.The department of education wants to ensure that those admitted to secondary education programs focus more on content than how a subject is being taught, according to the proposal.Currently, six out of IU’s eight campuses’ education schools require more content knowledge than the major would in mathematics and English, according to The Indiana Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.“These facts have been presented to the Indiana professionals and the department of education,” Gonzalez said. “And they keep repeating something they know isn’t true.”On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said it was a good sign that colleges of education want to start making self-policing more seriously, a statement that goes directly against the new proposal, Gonzalez said.“A lot of things the proposal says goes against what Arne Duncan said,” Gonzalez said. “The proposal is not research-based at all.” The department of education claims that courses offered through the school of education do not satisfy the same requirements as courses that are currently required for actual majors, said Cam Savage, communications director for the department of education.“We believe that future teachers are going to need a much deeper emphasis on the content they will be teaching,” Savage said. “If the math department truly believed other classes were the same in education schools as they are in theirs, they would be handing out math degrees.”The Indiana Professional Standards Board will meet twice in November to review the testimonies made at the public hearings. The earliest date for the proposal is July 2010, Savage said.However, this presents a problem for students who have already been accepted to the education school and will not graduate by 2010, Gonzalez said.“It could be that students now will follow one curriculum and next year they’ll ollow another one,” Gonzalez said. “It creates a lot of problems for the ones who are creating the curriculums.”The concern that has taken precedent among educators is state involvement in the schools of education’s curriculum, Gonzalez said.“The biggest problem with this proposal is that it represents an incursion into the education program from an external entity that should not be in the position of regulating the curriculum,” Gonzalez said. “They do not know the intricacies of what goes into making the curriculum.”Current licensing rules are intending to move back to previous standards where the state was more prescriptive in authorizing the body of classes, Savage said.“We don’t tell the school of education how they need to do it,” Savage said. “We simply say these are the parameters ... we don’t prescribe the exact remedy.”
(10/14/09 3:51am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There will be a record number of Indiana 10th grade students taking the PSAT exam today, and it is doing a lot more than preparing students for the SAT.More than 69,000 high school sophomores have registered to take the PSAT exam, a standardized test that serves as a practice test for the SAT and is also a diagnostic tool to identify students’ qualifications for Advanced Placement courses and credit.The PSAT exam being administered today comes at no charge for students and comes out of the state’s education budget, according to the PSAT fact sheet available from the Indiana Department of Education.The department’s goal for 2012 is that 25 percent of all Indiana students will pass at least one AP exam. In 2008, 19.8 percent of Indiana students were enrolled in AP courses.Today, Indiana students account for about 28 percent of 10th grade students taking the PSAT in the Midwest, according to the College Board’s 2008 state summary of the Indiana PSAT.However, there is still a large gap between the number of students whose PSAT scores qualify them for AP courses and the number of students who actually take AP classes and exams, according to the College Board.While many reasons contribute to this gap, the main issue is “a lack of information,” said Carroll Easterday, senior educational manager at the College Board’s Indiana office.“There’s a lack of information that gets to the students, and it’s certainly not that counselors do not share it,” Easterday said. “Sometimes there just needs to be more information.”Recently, the Department of Education has implemented a new AP program as a way to get more information to students who are interested in AP courses, said John Gubera, the advanced placement director at the Department of Education.“We want to have someone who is very interested in AP growth in school to be onsite at every school,” Gubera said. “We would relay all available AP information directly to that person.”The College Board has also issued a tool called AP Potential that analyzes students’ PSAT scores to help identify potential AP students, according to the College Board.“The College Board has conducted studies over a period of time to see if there is a correlation between AP exam results and PSAT scores,” Easterday said. “There is a pretty significant relationship between PSAT scores and a student’s potential for doing well in AP courses.”AP Potential, along with the increased number of sophomores taking the PSAT today, will greatly aid in increasing the number of students who participate in AP classes, Gubera said.“This tool helps find students who qualify for AP classes that may not have been found before,” Gubera said.By law, every Indiana high school is supposed to offer at least two AP courses, Gubera said.But this is not the case.“Schools tend to say that students do not have enough interest and they don’t have enough kids to fill that class,” Gubera said.However, with the 33 percent increase of students taking the PSAT this year and the available AP tools now being utilized, Gubera is not deterred.“Our stance is that the AP is not just for the advanced or elite kids,” Gubera said. “It’s for the prepared student.”
(10/14/09 3:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bloomington High School North’s media center served as the stage for Dr. Robert Barr’s presentation titled “Striving for Excellence in a Time of Crisis: the Marketplace the World.’”A former director of teacher education at IU, Barr consults some of the poorest districts in the nation and encourages students to strive for academic achievement.After thanking the Monroe County School Board, J.T. Coopman,,, the superintendent of Monroe County Community Schools,, discussed how after meeting Dr. Barr at a conference, he was determined to have him speak in Monroe County.“When I brought the idea of bringing Dr. Barr in to the Monroe County School Board, they were all in,” Coopman said.Coopman commended Dr. Barr on his fervent dedication to promoting the necessity of education.“What you will see is true passion for education, for kids living in poverty that need us the most,” Coopman said. “It’s his life’s work.”Barr began by saying while every other work force has begun to drastically change, the field of education has remained steadfast.“Remember the old dream in America that anything is possible? That’s not true anymore,” Barr said. “There’s only one door for a good life in America and that’s education.” Educators, reporters, high school students and other members of the community leaned forward and listened attentively as Barr urged members of the community to get involved with improving education for students at the earliest age possible.“We need the support of the whole community,” Barr said. “We need churches and policemen and firefighters to rally around and support these kids.”Reading, Barr said, was key to the beginning of a successful college career.Barr was raised on a farm in Texas by a father with a second grade education and a mother with a third grade education, Barr said.“The principal sent a letter to my family. A letter to a family that couldn’t read,” Barr said. “We had to get the preacher to come in and read the letter to us.”Barr concluded by stressing that the one person who can have the most impact on a child’s life is an educator.“If it hadn’t been for a teacher and another teacher and another teacher, I would probably be a dry-land farmer in Texas,” Barr said. “Educators changed that.”
(10/13/09 1:11am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In 1997, the American Football Coaches Association was looking for a way to give back to the communities and countless fans that had supported them through seasons.In November, the AFCA and the FBI’s National Child ID Program will join efforts with Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Walmart Foundation to provide more than 162,000 children-identification kits to every kindergarten and first grade student in the state of Indiana. After the idea for the child identification kits began, they were handed out to parents and grandparents at football games, said Bret Phillips, vice president of government relations for the AFCA and FBI National Child ID Program.“What got the idea started for coaches was they saw where they had captured audiences at football games,” Phillips said. “So we used them as an outlet for handing out ID kits as parents left the stadium, and now it’s grown to what we’re doing in Indiana.”Every year, 800,000 children go missing in America, according to the Department of Justice.“Statistics have been coming out since the founding of the AMBER Alert system, and they haven’t changed that much,” Phillips said.At the time when the AMBER alerts were founded, fewer than two percent of households in America had a copy of their children’s fingerprints, Phillips said.“Stats kept popping up, and we thought maybe there was a need for these ID kits,” Phillips said.The kit provides parents with a set of their children’s fingerprints and other identifiable information that can be recorded and stored at home. The ID kit can provide vital information to law enforcement agencies in case the child ever goes missing.In 2001, the FBI approached the AFCA about teaming up with the Child ID program, Phillips said.“The FBI caught word of what we were doing and asked to partner with it and do more community outreach programs,” Phillips said. “The kits allowed them to do that, and the child identification kits became FBI-approved.”To help raise awareness for the program, Daniels will declare November as “Child Identification Month,” according to an October press release.“There’s not much more that anyone else can do than protect those who are most vulnerable,” Daniels said in an audio recording from the launch of Indiana’s participation in the Child Identification Program, which was launched Oct. 6.Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Caldwell was also at the launch to promote the Child Identification Program.“I am a father of four and have two grandsons,” Caldwell said. “This initiative certainly touches everyone in our communities.”
(10/12/09 1:18am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The State Indicator Report on Fruits and Vegetables, released Sept. 29 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, summarized for the first time data on fruit and vegetable consumption in Indiana as well as policies and consumption objectives for the state.The report is one of many steps to boost the consumption of fruits and vegetables nationwide.Healthy People 2010, a program managed by the CDC, outlines the national objectives for the consumption of fruits and vegetables as well as resources to help Americans reach these objectives.The goal of Healthy People 2010 is to increase the number of Americans eating at least two fruits daily to 75 percent and three vegetables daily to 50 percent, said Laura Hormuth, nutrition coordinator for the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the Indiana State Department of Health.“Really all people need to eat more fruits and vegetables,” Hormuth said. “We’re way below the national goal.”The State Indicator Report shows that Indiana, along with all other states, is not meeting the national objectives for fruit and vegetable consumption.“When you look at people who are meeting both requirements, only 9 percent of 9th to 12th graders are getting two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables,” Hormuth said.The Healthy People program is based on tenure goals and objectives set at a national level. Because so few Americans have reached the goals of Healthy People 2010, Healthy People 2020 will be based on newer dietary guidelines of 2005, Hormuth said.Dietary guidelines are re-established every five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to myPyramid.gov.“The new one changed servings to cups,” Hormuth said. “There are new recommendations that vary by age and gender; but for most people it’s one to three cups of fruit and two to two and a half cups of vegetables.”In 2008, Indiana received a grant from the CDC to address the issue of obesity, Hormuth said.This money went to creating the Healthy Weight Initiative, a program promoting healthy eating and physical activity. The initiative will also evaluate a state plan for encouraging healthy weight and building and sustaining statewide capacity for promoting a healthy lifestyle, according to the Healthy Weight Initiative Web site.“As years go on, kids go from being overweight to obese,” Hormuth said. “They have a hard time maintaining a healthy lifestyle and this Web site helps them come up with ideas that will help them stay healthy.”The USDA tracked consumption of vegetables among different age groups and discovered that older people liked to prepare their food at home while most people in their 20s are not preparing their own food but eating out more, Hormuth said.Ideas include healthier options at restaurants so children can get substantial servings of vegetables, Hormuth said.“Children are probably getting a third of their meals at fast food restaurants, so we’re trying to get fruits and vegetables put on the menu,” Hormuth said.
(10/05/09 3:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Teachers throughout Indiana are committed to drastically lowering the K-12 student dropout rate in Indiana. Administrators stressed the gravity of the dropout situation in Indiana during the Indiana Dropout summit that took place last week.Currently, only three of four students entering the ninth grade will graduate from high school, Dr. Tony Bennett, superintendent of Public Education, said in a press release.“We cannot continue to ignore this growing problem in our state,” Bennett said. “The clock is ticking.”Representatives from counties throughout Indiana shared ideas that had helped lower the dropout rate in their communities, along with ones that were less effective, said Lauren Auld, press secretary for the Indiana Department of Education. During the 2007-08 school year, Monroe County had a total of 71 students drop out of school in grades 9 through 12, according to statistics from the Indiana Department of Education’s Web site.Jennifer Staab, the Healthy Schools coordinator for Monroe County Community Schools Corporation, said in an e-mail interview that the key for preventing dropouts lies in the connection between students and the people in their lives.“It’s not about what program or intervention you put into your school,” Staab said. “It’s about the connections and relationships you build with your students.”The dropout issue can begin before children enter middle school, making it a lot broader of an issue than it can appear, Staab said.“We had a lot of discussion among the team that most of our high school students who are ready to drop out became disconnected in 5th or 6th grade,” Staab said. “When we look at this issue, we have to look at it from a broader perspective.”The main hope for Monroe County Representatives when dealing with the dropout rate is to form a closer connection with the students and build strong relationships, Staab said.“They should feel like at least one adult cares about their success,” Staab said.
(09/22/09 2:14am)
Superintendent
of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett released the results of the 2009
Indiana Statewide Testing for Education Progress last week, revealing
that Indiana students were challenged by the new ISTEP+ test and its
benchmarks.
(09/21/09 2:59pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett released the results of the 2009 Indiana Statewide Testing for Education Progress last week, revealing that Indiana students were challenged by the new ISTEP+ test and its benchmarks.The ISTEP+ is administered to about 500,000 students in grades 3-8 and offers a detailed snapshot of the information a student has retained during his or her academic year. The test helps educators and parents identify the academic strengths and weaknesses of Indiana students.Indiana students had statewide pass rates of 70 percent in English/Language Arts, 71 percent in Mathematics, 62 percent in Science and 59 percent in Social Studies.This year marked the initiation of the Indiana Department of Education’s decision to move the ISTEP+ test from the fall to the spring. The move was based on requests from teachers and parents and is meant to show a more accurate reflection of what students learned during the school year, said Press Secretary for the Indiana Department of Education, Laura Auld."For thirteen years the ISTEP+ was given in the fall and, because of the long summer break, a lot of students had not retained what they had learned from the year before," Auld said. Check tomorrow's IDS for the full story.
(09/17/09 4:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>About 164 employees of Bloomington’s GE Consumer and Industrial plant were laid off Monday.Today will be the last day of work for those employees.The layoffs are a response to current market conditions, said Kim Freeman, director for public relations for Louisville-based GE Consumer and Industrial plants.“Not only have appliance sales overall declined significantly during the past year, consumer demand for side-by-side refrigerators is down 42 percent,” Freeman said.In an attempt to avoid the job cuts, plant officials presented options to the company such as wage freezes, said Carven Thomas, president and business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, Local 2249.However, Thomas said the company was not interested in entertaining these options at the time.“Their story was we were carrying too many people,” Thomas said. “Even if I got a wage freeze, we were making too many units with the amount of people we had.”GE aims to decrease Bloomington production from 1,400 to 1,100 units per day, Thomas said.“They’re adjusting the workforce to recessionary numbers, and I don’t think they’re looking forward to what happens when we come out of this recession,” Thomas said.In March 2008, GE announced it would close during the first quarter in 2010 as a response to a decline in side-by-side refrigerator sales and rising material costs, according to a statement from plant manager Kent Suiters.However, in July, GE announced its decision to cancel the previously announced closing in light of new developments including new energy legislation, Freeman said in her company statement.The energy legislation is what extended the closing of the plant, Thomas said.“If we reduce the amount of emissions in our products, we get a rebate,” Thomas said.The idea behind this legislation was for companies to reduce emissions while stimulating the economy by creating and keeping jobs, Thomas said.“Congress did that to stimulate jobs,” Thomas said. “But when the bill was passed, no one said we expect you to create jobs and that’s the number of jobs we expect you to create.”Some of the workers who are being laid off qualify for benefits, such as retirement, Freeman said.They wanted to drastically minimize the impact of these job cuts, Suiters said in a statement. “For those not eligible for retirement, we will work closely with them to take advantage of GE’s comprehensive range of benefits ... to help them through this transition,” Suiters said.Currently, 78 of the Bloomington plant’s workers qualify for a retirement option, Thomas said.“The retirement option is for those who are 55 years old with 25 years of seniority,” Thomas said. “It allows you to be supplemented until you reach the age of 62 – it’s a good deal.”On Wednesday, plant officials handed out at least 93 lay-off notices and have been working throughout the week to get former employees proper benefits, Thomas said.“We’re looking for that number to go down a little more,” Thomas said. “We’re hoping it will.”