Bristor might keep Trinity coaching job

Levi Bristor might keep his coaching job.
The Trinity School Board approved a policy tonight that does not allow administrators to be coaches.
As the policy has been discussed over the past three months, three administrators had the potential to be impacted.
Ed Dalton was the varsity head football coach and athletic director. However, the board transferred him to a teaching position and kept him as coach. High School Assistant Principal Chad Daloia was an assistant football coach. The board accepted his resignation as assistant principal Thursday. Bristor is the varsity baseball coach and director of transportation.
Though the policy specifically lists his position as an administrator who can’t be a coach, Superintendent Paul Kasunich would not say Thursday night that Bristor has to make a choice between his two positions.
Find out more in Friday's Observer Reporter.

Trinity may shuffle some students

Trinity Area School Board is considering whether to move eighth-graders to the high school and fifth-graders to the middle school.
The board also is considering whether to end full-day kindergarten and whether to redistrict students out of Trinity West Elementary because of overcrowding concerns.
The discussions came up during Thursday’s school board finance committee meeting. No decisions have been made.
Finance committee members asked Superintendent Paul Kasunich to come up with a preliminary report about the impact of those changes on education programs and finances. He will have a report for the board in May.
Jim Manley, the consultant hired by the board to review the district, recommended in his March report that the board consider redistricting as well as moving eighth-graders to the high school and creating primary centers. He said all options should be considered to gain space.
School board member Dennis McWreath said there would probably be greater flexibility of educational programs for eighth-graders if they were at the high school and for fifth-graders if they moved to the middle school.
McWreath said he also wanted to know if it would be better for the district financially.
If fifth-graders were moved to the middle school, there would be enough space at Trinity West and no need for redistricting, he said. McWreath said there is enough room at the middle and high schools to move the students to those facilities.
“If it is a good idea from an educational standpoint and it’s a good idea from a financial standpoint, then I think it should be done sooner rather than later,” McWreath said after the meeting.
During the meeting, he questioned whether the changes could be done for the fall.
Superintendent Paul Kasunich said it would be a more efficient use of staff and it would give eighth-graders more educational opportunities.
However, he said when it happened at a previous district he worked at, there were parental concerns about eighth-graders being in the same building as 12th-graders. He said the district didn’t see a lot of problems from having that grade grouping in one building.
Logistically, he said, the change would not be a problem. But should the board decide it wants to go that route, Kasunich suggesting explaining it to the community over the course of a year.
“It’s one thing to see it on paper,” he said. “It’s another when it affects your son or daughter. Then it’s personal.”
Kasunich said he’s concerned that the community buy in to the idea, or at least, understand the benefits of it.
“If implemented correctly, none of them would be detrimental to kids,” Kasunich said.
Board member Colleen Interval said if it’s going to give students more educational value, then it should be done.
“That’s what this new board is about,” she said.
From a financial standpoint, moving the grades makes a lot of sense, said board member Scott Day.
“But September is not that far away,” he said, suggesting it might be better to wait a year.
McWreath said that he was a big supporter of full-day kindergarten. However, he questioned whether it is effective since 10 percent of Trinity kindergartners were held back this year. He said Trinity never had a retention rate that high with half-day kindergarten.

Trinity considers moving eighth graders to high school, fifth graders to middle school

Trinity School Board is considering whether to move eighth graders to the high school and fifth graders to the middle school.
Trinity is also considering whether to end full-day kindergarten and whether to redistrict student out of Trinity West Elementary because it is overcrowded.
The discussions came up during Thursday’s school board finance committee meeting. No decisions have been made.
However, committee members asked Superintendent Paul Kasunich to come up with a preliminary report about the impact of those changes on education and on finances. He will have a report for the board in May.

Trinity students test bridge-building skills

It took days for students to build bridges for Jane Shamitko’s physics II class but just seconds for them to come crashing down.
The Trinity High School seniors made the bridges out of toothpicks and glue. A few also used small Popsicle sticks. They said it took more than 70 hours to build each one.
“Every day during the blizzard, that’s all I did,” said 18-year-old Josh Ferguson.
The students had to research bridge design and determine what they thought would hold at least 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds.
Some students worked together, and the class built five different bridges. One was 6 feet long, while the rest were 3 feet long.
One at a time Wednesday, weights were added to the bridges to see how much they would hold.
Ferguson went first.
He placed a 1 kilogram weight in a bucket hanging on his bridge.
“I didn’t even hear it creak,” Shamitko said.
He slowly kept putting weights in the bucket. It started to crack at 10 kilograms.
When he put the 11th kilogram in, the bridge came crashing down, sending toothpicks flying.
Ferguson was happy with the results.
“Better than I expected,” he said.
The purpose of the project was to learn about bridge truss design, proper gluing and how to build a bridge, said 18-year-old Mike Smith.
He was the only student who chose not to put more than 5 kilograms on his bridge. As long as the bridges met that requirement, the students didn’t have to keep weighing them down until they snapped.
All of the bridges held at least 5 kilograms.
“I thought they would meet the requirements,” Shamitko said. “They had their doubts.”