The Middle-School Line and the Career/Technical Line

THE LINES AS THEY STAND · NOVEMBER 2026

The middle-school line runs in three seats. Before the consolidation there was no separate middle school; the town's graded school carried the middle grades in the old Collegiate Institute building. At the consolidation the former New Carlisle High School in town became the middle school — New Prairie Junior High, whose yearbook survives for 1969 — and the line's third seat is the present New Prairie Middle School on Cougar Road, grades 6–8, under Principal Heidi West from July 1, 2026. The date of the move from the town building to Cougar Road was not reached and is carried in the gaps.

The career and technical line is cooperative, and it crosses the county line. New Prairie High School sends its career-center students to the A. K. Smith Career Center in Michigan City — La Porte County Career and Technical Education, 817 Lafayette Street, Michigan City — where students begin in the eleventh grade; the high school guidance office takes applications from tenth graders each November. The South Bend Tribune, in March 2024, put it as the standing arrangement: "Currently, New Prairie High School sends students to Michigan City's A. K. Smith Career Center in LaPorte County." A second door opened in 2026: on June 15, 2026, the South Bend Community School Corporation's board approved an agreement letting students from participating non-South Bend public or private schools enroll in South Bend's career and technical programs for 2026–27 — the Tribune noting that a New Prairie United student had already participated in South Bend's aviation program the year before — with the sending school providing transportation and tuition. New Prairie also sat at the planning table for the St. Joseph County Career Hub, its name among the steering-committee districts in the hub's March planning documents. In-house, the high school runs its own career pathways under the state's Next Level Programs of Study, and its building-trades program — whose students built a house in Rolling Prairie — loses its longtime teacher at the end of 2025–26: Keith Hite, retiring after 36 years at New Prairie, honored in the board's December 15, 2025 notes.

Sources:

1. New Prairie High School Guidance, "Career Center" and "Career Pathways" pages (corporation site) — the A. K. Smith arrangement, application timing, and in-house pathways.
2. South Bend Tribune, March 2024, and June 22, 2026 — the A. K. Smith arrangement stated, and the South Bend CTE agreement of June 15, 2026.
3. St. Joseph County Career Hub planning FAQ — New Prairie on the steering committee.
4. NPUSC Board Notes, December 15, 2025 — the Hite retirement; NPHS newsletter, January 2025 — the Rolling Prairie building-trades house.