Dr. Ty Mungle Provides School Board On 2 Years Of Progress For NLCS

(BEDFORD) – During the North Lawrence Community School board Dr. Ty Mungle provided the board members an update on the 2 years of progress the corporation has made in addressing the issues plaguing the corporation.

Mungle states the deficit spending by the school corporation has been addressed by reducing operating expenditures through consolidation, reduction in insurance costs, utilities, transportation maintenance, custodial, and administrative cuts.

The corporation now has been able to right size the staff through attrition without having to RIF teachers, or layoff personnel. Classrooms are now more uniform, some classes previously had six students in the classroom, and some had as many as 28.

The school corporation has made many IT improvements over the last two years with Board Docs to communicate with staff and community members. Several upgrades at the administration building have been made to improve keeping track of personnel information, payroll, and other financial information. Older systems have been replaced with more modern technology to provide efficiency in these areas.

All school programs are now available in every school, uniformly. If a student wants to participate in robotics, each of the schools has robotics available to them.

The corporation wanted to make sure all North Lawrence Community School students were provided an equal opportunity which was accomplished through Empire Virtual Learning Academy, Gateway Academy, Early Cares, Playful Pathways, Project Lead The Way is now Pre K-12, District-Wide 1- 1 Chromebooks, increased connectivity through hot spots, and the addition of a School Safety Coordinator.

In addition, the corporation has been able to improve wages for certified and support staff. In 2020-2021 the corporation worked to change the policy manual to get each of the departments aligned with wage progression and benefits to be consistent among each of the departments.

The school improvement bonds will be used to make improvements at the Athletic Department at Bedford North Lawrence High School in addition to other improvements at the corporation’s elementary schools.

The graduation rate at Bedford North Lawrence High School in 2018 was 80 percent and in 2019 that graduation rate was 88 percent as the school made strides to improve that rate.

Over the last two years the corporation received over $1,877,000.00 in grants.

Grants received by the North Lawrence Community Schools over last two years include:

  • United Way Pre-School Grant – $50,000
  • Indiana Department of Education Acceleration Grant – $75,000
  • Indiana Department of Education Digital Learning Capacity building grant – $75,000
  • Governor’s Education Emergency Education Relief Fund – $199,000
  • General Motors STEM Grant Through LEGC – $20,000
  • Career Coaching Grant Collaboration with Mitchell thorough LEGC – $10,000
  • Lawrence County Community Foundation PPE Grant – $33,000
  • Lilly Mental Health Grant – $484,000
  • Precision Health Grant – $20,000
  • Skill-Up grant through LEGC Workforce Coalition – $500,000
  • BNL School Improvement Grant – $296,000
  • Rural Early College Network Grant – $115,000

Mungle also stated the corporation has just learned they won another six figure grant but was not prepared to release the details of that grant award at this time.

“A lot of positive news for our school corporation over the last two years,” said Mungle.