By Angel Perkins Staff Writer
Only a handful of parents attended Triton’s first Round Table meeting, designed to inform and discuss issues with all parents of students at Triton Elementary School.
Unlike regular school board meetings, the round table meetings were something Triton Schools Super-intendent Carl Hilling believes will allow parents and community members to speak freely and ask questions on a more informal basis in a forum where attendees can address what they are specifically concerned about, not simply allowing them to comment on items on a pre-planned agenda.

For the first of these meetings, Triton Elementary Principal Jeremy Riffle answered questions ranging in nature from teacher/student class-size ratio to what determines which teacher a student will be placed with and from health precautions regarding the local H1N1 flu outbreak and policies associated with that to items regarding children’s testing scores.
Riffle was proud to remind those present of the school’s vision, seeing their school as “a community of learners achieving their personal best.”
He explained that staff are continually doing their best to become better educators and that as a unit, they strive to be accountable for the students’ successes.
Some things Riffle said staff is working on behind the scenes include creating a framework to understanding poverty and strength finders-tools for getting to know each individual student better. “We have a 96.6 percent attendance rate and we have 553 students,” he said, “versus the state average of 96.1 percent ... and 76.2 percent of our students passed their Math and Language Arts portions of the ISTEP.”
He added that education, while of the utmost importance, is not the only thing he sees as critical for providing the Triton students. “Forty-eight percent of our students qualify for free or reduced lunches,” he explained. “We take a lot of pride in offering that hot breakfast and lunch. For some students, it’s the only hot meal they get.”
He continued that the school staff is working on enriching their high ability education program and building communication between parents, staff and the community. “I’ve been around public education for a number of years and you have a gem in Jeremy,” said Hilling. “The links are there for communication and being heard.”
The next Superintend-ent’s, Parent and Commun-ity Roundtable Meeting will be held Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 6:30 p.m. at the Matchette Square Senior Center, 805 N. Harris St., Bourbon. The main topic will be  junior and senior high school education.
Another upcoming Super-intendent’s Parent and Community Roundtable Meeting will be held Tuesday, Dec. 15 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. regarding school finances and maintenance. Although each meeting has a specific topic, there will be ample time after the presentations for open discussion pertaining to any area, questions and comments.
Patronage at these meetings is open but limited to the adult public of the Triton school district as no child care is available. For more information contact the corporation office at 574-342-2255.