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Student, teacher relations monitored
By Katie McPherson
Schools may soon be able to monitor communication between students and school personnel, if a new bill gets passed in the Indiana Statehouse.
Senate bill 266, created by Sen. Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn), would require school workers, volunteers, student teachers and students to forward all electronic communication, such as texting and emails, to both the student’s parents and the school principal.
According to the bill, principals would be required to keep all records for at least two years. By passing this bill, Kruse hopes to eliminate any inappropriate behavior between students and teachers. John Ellis, Ball State assistant professor of educational leadership, said this would be a burden on school corporations.
“When I looked at the bill, I saw no funding for schools to buy the servers it’s going to take to mass up on keeping every one of those notes,” Ellis said.
On the other hand, Lauren Kramer, sophomore elementary education major, said the bill could be useful.
“It would be beneficial to have record of everything going on between teachers and students in specific cases,” Kramer said.
Ellis said every school that has email already has a monitoring system that can help them track accounts provided and funded by the school at any time. Allison Murray, junior elementary education major, said the tracking of emails could make communication more challenging.
“I think it’ll make it harder to communicate because it’s going to limit (teachers) them,” Murray said.
One of Ellis’ concerns is that both students and parents can rewrite and continue emails that teachers send to them.
“If somebody wanted to really get at a teacher, they can get into that change, make a change back a couple of emails ago.” Ellis said. “Odds are you wouldn’t look back to find something has been changed and distorted on an email you sent last month to that student.”
School corporations can’t keep track of a teacher’s personal email account unless it is also connected with the school email. Ellis said he would focus more on a teacher’s personal email rather than their school email if they use it more during school hours.
“It’s not simple,” he said.
Ellis said the senate needs to find out what schools are doing now and have a knowledge base before they “start dictating statutes and putting limits and putting people in jail.” He supports the overall idea, but said that senators need to put a little more into the bill before passing it.
If volunteers or employees of the school don’t forward their emails to the parents of the student and principal, they could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor with a “potential maximum punishment of up to one year’s imprisonment and a $5,000 fine.” According to the bill, if a student does not comply with “the provisions concerning electronic communications is subject to discipline by the school the student attends.”
Despite his concerns, Ellis says he favors the concept.
“If we can keep one child safe by doing a whole bunch of work, then it’s certainly worth it,” he said.
If it gets passed, the bill could be in effect July 1.
Former Muncie middle school proposed to become new county jail
By Katie McPherson
Former Muncie middle school Wilson shut down in June of 2014 after they merged with Southside. Now, the county is looking to turn Wilson Middle School into the new county jail.
One of the county commissioners said space is a major issue with the current county jail, but that Wilson Middle School could be the answer. The 219,000-square-foot school sits on 51 acres. Delaware County Commissioner James King said turning Wilson Middle School into a new county jail could be exactly what Muncie needs.
“The jail we have now you can’t build up,” King said. “You can’t build out. I don’t know why anybody would build a triangle jail in the first place.”
The county jail currently holds around 300 inmates, but it was only built to house around 120 inmates. King said with the new jail location, Muncie could house up to 500 beds, which could save taxpayers up to $500,000 that is usually spent on sending inmates out of county.
Mike Brown, Ball State University criminal justice professor, said when we have overcrowding within the jails that it encourages innovation. Innovations such as pretrial programs can help keep a large amount of citizens out of jail.
Pretrial programs allow those who aren’t dangerous to remain in the community and continue to work, support their families and pay taxes. If they are incarcerated, they are no longer paying taxes and supporting their families. Brown said because of this there are several factors to determine if it is best to expand.
“The research shows if you’ve got empty beds the courts will use them and that is an important consideration, so expenses can actually increase because there are jail beds to fill,” Brown said.
King said there are still a lot of steps that need to be taken in order to move forward with this project. The county commissioner doesn’t see the project being completed within the next two years, but he says with all the drug issues in the county, they need to start looking to build this facility now.
“It’s something that needs to be done,” King said. “I’ve always been told by several politicians that if you ever bring up the jail you won’t get reelected. Well, I didn’t get into this line of work to worry about that. I will do what is right and what needs to be done. If it costs me an election, then so be it. ”
He really wants this project to be a team effort by all justice departments. Because of all the limited space downtown, King said he has plans to move more than just the county jail over to the middle school.
“Not only can we put the jail there, you can put the courts there, the prosecutor’s office there, anything to do with our justice system can actually go out there at Wilson, where you can just have one area,” King said.
King has to face a few challenges in order to move forward with this project. One challenge will be finding out what the school has planned for the former middle school. But King said his biggest obstacle is going to be the neighborhoods surrounding Wilson Middle School that don’t want the jail there.
Muncie Board of Trustees school plan includes more closings
By Katie McPherson
Muncie’s Board of Trustees discussed five options that could help get the Muncie Community Schools back on track. The options range from redistricting a few elementary schools to individually themed schools that specialize in one area.
Former board president Tony Costillo said redistribution might happen due to another school being closed. They closed Wilson Middle School late last summer and have closed 22 buildings in the last 30 years.
“We are almost 100 percent sure we are going to have to close at least one more building in order to save enough money to really become a balanced budget,” Costillo said.
He said even if they spend the money needed for each school that it doesn’t mean the schools will stay open. If needed, they may have to close a second school.
Many of the teachers who work in the Muncie Community Schools haven’t lost their jobs, even with the moving and closing of schools. Costillo said the board’s goal is to keep the moral of the teachers up regardless of the option they go with.
“I would like a system that provides the best possible education and that is, in the eyes of most of our teachers equals, the optimum system to teach in,” Costillo said.
The Board of Trustees has started to save money by monitoring and reducing energy costs, but Costillo said they can only cut so much.
“I see the greatest amount of balancing not coming from increased funds, but coming from decreased spending,” Costillo said.
Consultants in the architectural, engineering, financial and educational fields are coming to one of the board meetings in the next two months to recommend the final two options that should be considered.
Costillo said any decision they make would be implemented in the 2015-2016 academic year.
Vice president of the board Michael Long said he had no opinion on the plan and that there were more important issues at hand.
“There are more pressing issues such as the new superintendent search, new chief financial officer search and the possibility of privatizing the food services, maintenance and custodians,” Long said.
The Fault in Our Bones: The "Funky" Adventure
By Katie McPherson & Chris Simmons
The Indianapolis Museum of Art describes the newly popular sculpture as “twenty-two white bone-shaped benches inscribed with black drawings of bones that together form a large stylized human skeleton.”
Funky Bones was installed at the IMA in 2010 just south of the lake in the 100 Acres Nature Park. John Green’s book “Fault in Our Stars” came out in 2012. Green’s book mentions the sculpture multiple times during the ups and downs of his characters’ (Augustus Waters and Hazel Lancaster) tragic love story.
One family left their Ohio home to follow in Hazel and Augustus’s footsteps. Carrie Minten took her daughter Jocelyn and her daughter’s friend Jessica on a surprise adventure to the different places mentioned in the book.
“We went to the farmers market because it closes at noon. We went to North Central School (where Augustus went). We went down Grandview past the golf course on the way here and we went to the church (aka the Heart of Jesus). “ said Minten.
Minten planned this entire trip surrounding the book because Jocelyn and Jessica are “diehard fans” and “book nerds.”
Minten explained the unexpected trip as “just something to celebrate literature and it was so close, so we can go to all the places that are actually mentioned.”
Out of all the places they visited, the family had a bone to pick with one place in particular. Twenty-two bones to be exact.
“They (Jocelyn and Jessica) packed a picnic of orange stuff to have down at Funky Bones. “
The three girls came at a good time because IMA employee Shunae Drake said the sculpture won’t be here forever because the park rotates its pieces. Because the IMA is being slow and the popularity of Funky Bones is increasing, the piece will probably be here for a couple more years.
Even after seeing Funky Bones, the girls had one last place to stop before leaving the IMA.
“We’ll probably go in and see if they have a gift shop because I want to see if they have a Funky Bones t-shirt because I collect t-shirts to make into a quilt for when she goes off to college.”
Their trip ends in a not so happy way much like the book.
The three girls finished their trip by visiting every “Fault in Our Stars” fans’ most dreaded location: the cemetery. Crown Hill Cemetery was where the character Augustus was buried at the end of the book.