We are excited to welcome everyone back to the 2021-2022 school year. We would like to welcome our newest Spartans, our kindergarten students, who will be graduating in the class of 2034! We are committed to our mission of being, “...an educational community committed to fostering lifelong learning.” Our fantastic staff is eager to welcome and help each student maximize their own learning and personal growth.
2021-22 School Year Info
One positive lesson learned last year was the notion of a phased introduction to the school year. This helped with teaching routines to students, lunches, and transportation. The beginning of the school year will be as follows:
Tuesday, September 7th:
Wednesday, September 8th:
Thursday, September 9th:
Friday September 10th:
Monday, September 13th:
Tuesday, September 14th:
Wednesday, September 15th:
*Teachers will send out lists to parents regarding what day their student will come.
COVID Protocols
As many of you know, the health orders from last year have been lifted. It is the intent of the district to keep students at school for the full time 5-days a week and not mandate mask wearing during the 2021-2022 school year. However, we will be tracking our local data and may change certain portions of our plan in order to maintain keeping students in school and safe.
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Per CDC guidance, all individuals are encouraged to wear masks inside of our school buildings.
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Parents are encouraged to have students bring water bottles to school as a way of reducing potential exposure.
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We still ask that parents keep students home who are not feeling well.
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Contact tracing rules and notifications are still in place.
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If your child is vaccinated or wearing a mask and is a close contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID, they will not be required to be quarantined.
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Parents/Guardians will be notified if their student is considered a close contact.
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Per CDC mandate, all individuals riding on a bus must wear a mask.
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Medical exemptions can be granted by submitting a note from a medical provider.
Federal Funds to Support our Needs
We will be using our influx of federal funds to add an additional guidance counselor at the elementary level, to keep smaller class sizes in our primary building to address potential learning gaps, to have a teacher on special assignment at the 7-12 level to focus on social and emotional learning, and to have a technology coordinator to keep us moving forward with technology. These are positions directly tied to responding to the pandemic and utilizing federal funds, not general fund money. There is only one additional administrative position for this year, and that is due to our upcoming $64 million dollar building project. We think these changes will help to provide a more robust educational experience for our students.
Financial Outlook
This year we concluded with a positive balance of roughly $1.5 million over our expected plan for the year. Our ending balance is the best we have seen in over 10 years. There are a number of reasons for this that were outlined by our treasurer at the July board meeting, but among the reasons were: recovery of household income taxes, a restoration of state funding that was previously cut, an influx of federal funds that defrayed COVID related expenses, and strong fiscal management. Our future is looking brighter due to a new state system of school funding, along with continued fiscal responsibility. We will be updating our 5-year forecast in the coming months to reflect this new information.
Proud to be your Superintendent,
Ben Richards