Perry Meridian High School - Passages Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

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These Are Deeply Involved Perry Meridian ' s counselors and administrators played a big part in the life of all students who went through high school at Perry. They not only counseled and administrated, but they were deeply involved with academic, athletic, social, and extra-curricular activities. They encouraged students to get good grades, cheered students on in their sporting events, attended social events, and sponsored extra- curricular activities while enforcing the law of the school. The guidance department made an attempt to become close to the in- dividual student. It had eight counselors, two of whom counseled upper classmen. These counselors also acted as class sponsors. Mr. Bob Banks, guidance depart- ment chairman and senior counselor, commented, I oversaw the whole department, helped withdraw and enroll several students every week, and helped with the orientation of new students. I assisted in ad- ministering the PSAT to juniors and sophomores. For sophomores, the test was only practice to give them some idea of what it was like to take a big test like that. I gave applications for college to students who wanted to apply, relayed information about scholarships to requesting students, and arrange d for guest speakers to come in and speak about colleges, careers, and the military. Miss Sharon Brown, counselor, said, The old way of distributing students to counselors was to assign two counselors to a certain grade, and since the reorganization, a few years ago, the way has been to have two senior coimselors with the alphabet divided between them and have six underclass counselors with the alphabet divided among them. It has really streamlined the scheduling, attendance, and counseling pro- cesses, I was on the gifted committee which dealt with the IDEA program. There were 22 freshmen involved with the program. Miss Brown also had to take charge of the Honors Night program and scheduling system. Mrs. Geraldine McBride, senior counselor, commanded several pro- grams. She was in charge of the 170 GUIDANCE

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darkroom and the publications room. The IMC had many books and magazines available. Books could be checked out for one week at a time while magazines could be used over- night. All material, however, could be renewed if it was needed for a longer period of time. Students learned many things from using the IMC ' s materials. Mrs. Cidney Berebitsky, an English teacher, said that her students used the IMC to do research papers on controversial topics. They used material for research on famous people and criticisms of authors and their works. Mrs. Berebitsky said that the IMC taught her students self-motivation, how to set goals for themselves, how to gain information ' and insight, how to effectively use the IMC. Mr. David Gerkensmeyer, chairman of the science department, said that his students learned about things not necesarily talked about in class, and that they used the IMC to do reports for science classes. Mr. Dan Cunningham ' s students used the IMC for book reports. Most teachers said that they thought the audio visual department was the best equipped, but they wanted a larger variety of periodicals, more vertical file clippings, and more science oriented material. The school purchased much new material for the students and faculty to use. A third video cassette recorder was purchased along with a color camera and a television set for monitoring. They bought a video disc player, a stereo, and a new tape recorder. The tape recorder enabled students to record on eight track tapes as weU as ca ssette tapes. The IMC purchased new films, records, and video tapes. A variety of books was pxirchased totaling 989. Mr. Ken Knabel, the audio visual coordinator, said that they would like to have purchased eight to ten com- puters. We would ' ve had to train students to use them, but they would have been available for anyone who wanted to use them, he said. Com- puters would have been helpful in tak- ing inventory and to print overdue notices. Even the card catalog could have been computerized. This would have made books much easier to find. Mrs. Vera Fredenburg, the IMC ' s director said, I think a larger percen- tage of students should use IMC materials. Many students came in here just to have a good time. We did have a very good and cooperative group of student helpers though. The IMC had much material for the students and faculty to use including audio vis ual material, seminar rooms, and darkroom, besides many books and magazines to read. Much new equipment was purchased along with new books to give students a larger variety of material to use. The IMC was not just another library; it was a place for learning, developing ideas and thoughts, and gaining informa- tion and insight into many things. Gail Yauk ' 87 relies on the card catalog to help her find the needed IMC materials. Clark Atkins ' 84 enjoys a magazine, one of the ' many sources available in the IMC. IMC169

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senior follow-up day whe re she would find all of the last year ' s seniors and ask them if they were married, going to college, working, or in the military. I provided college transcripts. I went around to colleges and talked to the previous year ' s graduates to find out how Perry ' s curriculum prepared them for college. She scheduled representatives from colleges and the military to come in and talk to students. Guidance coimselor, Mrs. Nina Day commented, After the redistributing of students to counselors, students from the same family had the same coimselor to deal with family problems together. We had peer tutoring sessions where we had a student volunteers to help someone in a certain subject during homeroom. We had LAB (Learn About Business) seminars where various people would come and talk about business and economics. Another project I supervised was Boys State and Girls State which was a one week seminar about govern- ment in action. The Hugh O ' Brien Youth Foundation had a special pro- gram for sophomores. The winners of the Lilly Endowment program for juniors went to a simimer camp and worked with inner city projects. The company based their selection on who had good community involve- ment and leadership qualities. Perry Meridian High School ' s guidance department hosted the school ' s sixth Career Awareness Day. This program afforded jimior and senior students the opportunity to acquire firsthand information about careers that interested them from people who currently were employed in those careers. Students were able to choose among a wide variety of careers. Some of the areas covered were broadcasting, model- ing, mechanics, drafting, performing arts, journalism, advertising, child care, science, and hotel and motel management. Mayor William Hudnut spoke to students about careers in government while Prosecutor Steven Goldsmith spoke about a career in law. To lead the school was Mr. James Head, principal. To assist the prin- cipal. Perry had two assistant prin- cipals, Mr. Ron Bolyard and Mr. Robert Dunn. Mr. Head commented about many changes and improvements. The adding on the building was a major improvement. The teachers, staff, department chairmen and the cur- riculum changed somewhat. This was the third year since busing of the northern community students be- gan. I had always thought that this was good because it gave students a taste of what life was like after graduation. The IDEA program for gifted freshmen and weighted grades was a change for better. Advanced placement was a college test where someone could have gotten some college credit if they got a high score. The North Central Evaluation made us a better school. Falcons Against Drinking and Drugs was a big improvement in the school because adults could have preached and preached about drugs, but students could have gotten through to the stu- dent drug taker better than their parents or counselors. We obtained lights for the tennis courts and a scoreboard for the football field. The writing lab in the English department was an addition for the better. Students went there to improve their writing skills. Communications were very important to Mr. Bolyard. He said that Perry students had two very good newsletters, the Perry Township Postmark and the PTA Communique, a good school paper, FOCUS, and a good yearbook, PASSAGES. He said that the morn- ing and afternoon announcements were also good. Mr. Dtmn said, I liked to plan the master schedule, which was schedul- ing students to teachers, teachers to room, teachers to courses, and courses to periods. I helped organize the teacher ' s handbook and students handbook. I supervised the cafeteria and ball games, and I was the Student Council sponsor. Mr. Bolyard stated, I thought communications with the entire school and the community had im- proved by listing Perry Meridian ' s school events on cable T.V. The way of assigning lockers changed from through first period through homeroom. This let the student have more access to their lockers during homeroom. ADMINISTRATION 171