by Curt Kovener 
Our Crothersville Community Schools have been on an academic achievement roll this past year.
First it was deemed a Grade A school system by the Indiana Department of Education. Both Elementary and High Schools received the states top marks for education success.
Last month the elementary school achieved 4-Star status for exceeding state improvement goals.
Last week the Department of Education announced that Crothersville Community Schools would be receiving a nearly $340,000 grant to make additional learning resources available to students.
According to the DOE, the local school will use the money to create the Tiger Tech Cage project, a 21st century teaching and learning environment with a focus on project-based learning. Among other features, the project will provide access to learning resources beyond the normal school day and opportunities for unique collaboration between school corporations, teachers, and students.
For those of us scratching our heads at the business and educational speak tone of that DOE news release, it means the local school will be doing more things to motivate and assist students learn and prepare for a changing world career market.
Crothersville was among the five public schools to be awarded the innovation grant: Warsaw Community Schools, North Montgomery community Schools (Crawfordsville), Greater Clark County Schools, and Evansville Vanderburgh community Schools were the others.
Herron High School is a charter school in downtown Indianapolis. The other grant award winners were groups or causes such as Teach for America, College Summit, Wilson Education Service Center, and La Casa de Amistad Inc.
Something that should jump out at you from that list is that Crothersville, with 542 students enrolled in grades K-12 this school year is competing and competing successfully with much larger schools and other educational providers.
That has to put a wrinkle in the shorts of state administration officials who want each school system to have a minimum of 1,000 students.
Grade A Schools, Four Star Elementary School, Innovation in Education Grant Award winner: Perhaps the lesson to take away from this is that size doesn’t matter. But quality, dedication and cooperative support of teachers, administration, students and parents does.
Congratulations to the teachers, administration, students and community who all comprise Crothersville Community Schools for their continuing David-like achievements among the educational Goliaths.
You can’t argue with success. Let’s continue to take pride in proving them wrong.
