Union-north United hears presentations on JAG and Laville sports

LAVILLE — During the Tuesday, april 16 Union-North United School Board meeting, the board had presentations from JAG and the school's athletic Director, Will Hostrawser.

Union-north United Superintendent angela Piazza first introduced Savannah Quezada from Jobs for american Graduates and high school counselor Lori Williams.

Williams explained that Quezada has a child at Laville Elementary School and that she had approached the High School Principal Michael Edison and herself earlier in the semester to talk about bringing the JAG program to the school next year.

Quezada is the JAG Region 2 Youth Director. She shared that JAG operates under the Northern Indiana Workforce Board, they run all of the Workone centers of the region. This region consists of St. Joseph County, Elkhart County, Kosciusko County, Fulton County and Marshall County. These Workone centers can be used to get assistance through their adult program, assistance after losing a job and other things.

The youth program is what JAG functions under. It has two sides, out of school youth and in school youth. She said that the out of school portion is for youth ages 16 to 24 that can go into any Workone building for assistance. These are typically students who have dropped out of high school. Going to Workone can help them get training in an area that they are interested in. These services would be paid for. For the in-school portion these kids that are ages 14 to 21 will have access to the JAG curriculum.

Right now, JAG currently operates for high school juniors and seniors. There are currently 17 JAG programs in schools around the area this year and they hope to expand to 23 programs next year. They are in every South Bend school, Tippecanoe Valley, Culver and many others.

Quezada explained that a program is where a specialist is hired to come into a school to teach a program that is focused on career and college readiness. This serves as a career class. These classes focus on different competencies. These are career development, job attainment, job

survival, basic competencies, leadership and self-development and personal skills.

These classes will bring in speakers for their students to hear from and will open up their students to engagement with internships, colleges and employers.

Part of the internship side can get students involved in a paid internship.

JAG also puts on career development conferences where students can compete with each other.

Services for students do not end once they are out of the JAG classroom. JAG will do follow-ups with the students once a month for a year following graduation. This is done to make sure that the student is able to maintain employment or enter into post-secondary education. If they do not, then JAG will try to help them get in contact with areas they are interested in.

Dual credit is also being added to JAG.

There is no cost to the school for JAG. They just ask that the school provides them with a classroom. This helps with breaking barriers with students as it lets them have privacy.

JAG also handles the hiring, salary, classroom supplies and any other things that have cost. They do work with the school on deciding who they hire.

Williams explained how this would integrate into the school. She said that Workone has done a lot to collaborate with her department to offer students different opportunities. Williams has worked in schools that had JAG in the past, so she was familiar with it. When she heard from Quezada, she started to think about students who would benefit from this program.

She first identified the groups as the students in the Lancer Academy program. What they would do for this is expand their day and have them stay for a fourth period to meet with the JAG instructor.

The second group identified is the Lancer Virtual Students. Williams would work with Quezada to put together a virtual JAG program for them where they would also have support from a distance. They have 32 students in Lancer Virtual this year, so they want to make sure to continue to offer the same opportunities to them that the in-person students receive.

A third group is the work based learning students. These students need a curriculum class, this JAG program will act as their curriculum class.

Outside of these three groups they will look at the barriers of students to determine who else could fit.

Once set up the JAG instructor will be in the school for a minimum of four periods of the day. Williams also hopes that the instructor will try to connect with their students during the lunch period so they can build up relationships.

Williams was asked if they would need a dedicated classroom. She said that Edison had plans for them to have a dedicated period for the periods that they would have the program.

She also wants to make sure that the JAG instructor feels like part of the staff, they will be invited to staff meetings and other staff activities. They will not expect the staff members to be at the school before their class as they have different responsibilities through Workone, so they want to respect their time.

The hope is to get a majority of juniors into this program as it will benefit them to be in the program for two years. If students graduate with the JAG certificate and have completed all the competencies, then they get a $100 bonus. They are looking to have 40 students in the program next year.

Quezada explained that JAG is funded by grants, the state and many other avenues.

As this program progresses Quezada will set up an application link, she will send this to Williams who will send it to the school’s staff who can send it forward to anyone that they think could fit the role. Williams will then work with Edison and Quezada to hire the right person for the job.

Hostrawser then came forward to give an athletic update. He began his report speaking about the school’s winter sports.

He first highlighted the girls basketball team. He talked about how the team started off with a rough patch but ended up going on to win the sectionals championship.

While speaking about the wrestling team he shared that for a team that was basically a rookie team they did very well as they finished second in the HNAC. He highlighted Jonathan Neece who won his third HNAC championship. The wrestling team also saw some renovations to their wrestling room.

When talking about boys basketball Hostrawser highlighted Collin Czarnecki who joined the 1,000 point club during the season.

When finishing speaking about winter sports he thanked the coaches for how well they did sharing gym time as there are many teams who all need to use the same locations.

Hostrawser then focused on spring sports.

He began by sharing praise for track coaches Kathe Beehler and Erin Ecker. He talked about how splitting the team into a boys and girls team has really improved the programs.

The softball team saw increased numbers this year which should help avoid canceled games due to a lack of members. He praised the new coach for how she is leading the team. A junior high softball team began this year.

When talking about how many students are in sports at Union-north United from grades 7-12 Hostrawser said that 44% of all students are in a sport. He said that overall participation numbers are up.

An update was given on the new Indiana State Conference that Laville will be a part of. This includes Bremen, Jimtown, John Glenn, Knox and Tippecanoe Valley. Schedules have already been built out for each sport. Every athletic director was assigned a sport to make a schedule for, Hostrawser was in charge of baseball.

He explained that with the new schedule all INSC teams will play on the same night for most of the sports. Laville will be hosting the conference tournaments for the first year.

He then listed the priority of projects for the athletics department. These were track cleaning/re-striping, baseball dugouts, PE locker rooms and finally varsity locker rooms.

Hostrawser also wants the weight room to be updated. The equipment was donated and is many years old. He wants the program to also change to have it be consistently ran, have someone in charge of it and have it available during the school day. He said that the football program is the only program that consistently uses the weight room, he said that this really helps prevent injuries and he hope that other sports will get involved with this too.

The school’s contract with Beacon is at the end of the year. He suggested extending the contract for one year at this time. He really wants to keep the athletic trainer because he believes she does a great job.

After Hostrawser’s report Piazza brought up their financial management system. She asked for approval for a new system from Software Systems Inc, this offers financial accounting, payroll, HR, fixed assets, disaster recovery and has an employee portal. She said this is long overdue. When looking at systems this is what the team really enjoyed.

Board Vice President Arden Balmer believes that this will pay for itself as it will increase efficiency.

Piazza then let the board know that they had received a letter from the IDOE about their Form Nine issues. Due to these issues the school had put too much into the education fund transfer. Instead of doing 15% they had done 15.34%. They will be submitting a corrective action plan.

Updates were then given about projects on the school property. It was shared that work is in progress as people are now on site.

It was stated that the boiler room project is also moving along.

At the end oof the meeting Piazza brought up Michael Good who is a member of the boys track team. He recently broke the schools discus record. He had a toss of 165 feet and three inches. This record was 27 years old and had been set by James Bettcher.

Good had thrown 172 but it did not count as it was out of the zone.

Piazza also wished students luck as they would be competing in the HNAC math contest.

She also gave a reminder that graduation would be Friday, May 24.

Balmer then made comments about the band. He complimented Cameron Banks for how well the band is.

He also congratulated the school on having 40% of second graders passing the third grade ilearn test.

The school will be implementing a policy that only allows students to use wireless devices during their lunch period and during passing periods. This will be effective on July 1.

The next school board meeting is Monday, May 13 at 6:30 p.m.