Dr. Nancy Harrison of Montgomery was hired at last night’s Loogootee school board meeting. Harrison was given a two-year contract and will take over for outgoing principal Chris Walker, effective July 1st. Harrison has family roots in the community and looks forward to her start at Loogootee.
In other personnel action, the board accepted the resignations of two teachers while hiring one. Resigning at the end of the school year are teacher and head boys’ basketball coach Ryan Haywood and teacher Bo Gibson. Jenna Rupska was hired as a new middle school art teacher. Dr. Harmon also thanked Terry and Janet Pielemeier (peal meyer) for their many years of service as custodians as the board accepted their retirements at the end of the year.
The board also approved a memorandum of understanding with Purdue University to create a curriculum to prepare students to work at the microchip processing plant planned to be built at Westgate. The other area schools that have been contacted to participate include Washington, Washington Catholic, and Greater Jasper Schools.
Shelley Christmas, director of curriculum and technology, said nine Loogootee middle school and high school teachers will spend a week at Purdue during the summer living in the dorms. All of them teach science, technology, engineering, or math.
Christmas was also pleased to announce that the middle school was certified as a STEM school on May 8 by the Indiana Department of Education. This now makes all of Loogootee’s schools stem certified.
Loogootee became the fifth corporation in Indiana to be fully STEM certified, following Manchester, Mount Vernon, North Posey, and Wes-Del.
