The Platte County R-3 School Board proposed a 2020-21 calendar at their Dec. 19 meeting.
The draft, which was developed by teachers, support staff, parents and school board members was formulated based upon changes in the law (House Bill 604) along with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and school district standards regarding student attendance days, teacher contract days and historical parent and staff survey data.
Also considered was alignment with other Northland school districts from a programming perspective.
House Bill 604 impacted the calendar the most with the restriction of the school start date to no earlier than 14 days prior to Labor Day.
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FBLA members at Platte County High School donated cookie mixes, icing and cookie cutters during the recent Christmas season. The community Service Team put together Cookie Decorating Kits for Hillcrest Platte Adult Housing.
The draft calendar now has the first day of school on Aug. 25 and the last day of school on May 26.
The draft calendar’s public review runs to Jan. 10. Comments may be emailed to Vicki Diggs at the school board. The board will vote on approval of the calendar at the board meeting on Jan. 23.
A tiered services key process update was presented to the board by Dr. Jennifer Beutel, executive director of pupil services. The support services include special education, reading improvement, school counseling, school social work, early childhood education, English language learning and gifted education. Specific improvement actions/key innovations include trauma.
Improvement areas include increasing district-wide staff knowledge on trauma and its effects on learning, behavioral training and strategies for all staff, expansion of suicide prevention programming and introduction to restorative practices, which are efforts to rebuild relationships damaged by behavior while teaching missing skills.
Tier 2 involves extra support for students who need it beyond the regular classroom.
Development and deployment will include continued work on aligned drilldown assessments paired to evidence-based interventions as well as building out of math and behavior intervention.
Development and deployment of strategies to create a culture of inclusion through a process of awareness, responsiveness and action through the lense of students, staff and community will also be focused on.
Ashley Seidl, kindergarten teacher at Pathfinder Elementary School was recognized by the board with the SCHIVIR Me Timbers award for her innovation and results orientation in modeling multi-sensory learning activities for students and parents with her “Sense”sational sight words training. Ten architect/engineer teams submitted a response for services for the board-approved long-range facility plan projects, completion of a comprehensive facility master plan and on-call services for capital improvements.
Six teams were invited to interview with the selection committee and they recommended three firms. Approval was given to negotiate contracts with DLR Group, Overland Park, Kan., Hollis & Miller, Kansas City, Mo. and Incite Design Studio, Kansas City, Mo.
Contracts will be approved at the January 2020 board meeting.