A merry-go-round of teaching changes opened the second half of the school year for North Platte.
During the Jan. 16 meeting, Emilee Buckler was hired as a paraprofessional and less than a month later, the North Platte graduate is now a third-grader teacher.
During a special school board meeting last month, the North Platte School District hired Buckler to fill the spot of Andrea Veatch.
She made the move to the elementary school where she will be the new special education teacher, replacing Laura Toliver, who resigned in January.
In a letter sent home to parents on Feb. 13 from Kelly Downing, the principal of North Platte Intermediate, in Edgerton, she called the move as temporary assignment for Veatch with Buckler being a substitute teacher in Veatch’s absence.
When asked about the discrepancy, Superintendent Karl Matt said the moves are for the rest of the school year and teacher contracts are awarded in March so it is unknown what position each will be in next school year.
The special education hire comes after Samantha Bennett filed a complaint with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for the lack of a certified special education teacher in the classroom that her autistic daughter is part of in Camden Point.
Bennett reached out to The Citizen and informed the paper that Veatch would be her daughter’s new teacher after a meeting with district officials — which came prior to the school board meeting to officially approving the move.
In other moves, Brianna Lounsbury was hired as a paraprofessional at the pre-school level, replacing Buckler.
Kristin Matthews and Kathy Evans, a former teacher in the district, were hired as subs, while the board accepted the resignation of Janet Kohler, the district speech and language pathologist, at the end of the school year. She was hired as a critical need hire, coming out of retirement earlier this school year.
During the regular school board meeting the senior trip was approved and summer school was discussed, though will be further addressed in the March 20 meeting.
The senior trip will be April 17-18 to Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City, Kan.
With the number of snow days the last day of school will be May 24, which included a makeup day on March 14 after the most recent cancellation. There were seven snow days the district has to make up.
Other news
Jakob Scroggins, Reece Hinton, Shelby Stapleton, Truman Byergo, Jordyn Smith, Caleb Hodge and Jonas Pelot qualified for the state FBLA competition.
Spelling bee winners from the junior high were: Grant Schuster, Katie Caskey, Haylie Burgess, Landen Green, Kayla Humes, Brooke Kretzer, Canaan Wren, Ashton Shepardson, Jade Leipard, Alex Morse, Jax Carpenter, Kylee Sipes, Ryder Coons, Maddie Boydston, Jason Martin, Jacob Umphress, Will McCracken, Carly Hinton, Audrey Buckler, Bailey Richardson, Remington Carter, Faith Gannaway, Wesley Meadows and Brooke Meadows. They all qualified for the district spelling bee that was held on Feb. 26.
The fifth-grade spelling bees winners were Brenden Matt, Jared Williams, Natalie Cheadle, Lincoln Masoner, Chloe Heckman, Chaz Alecia, Blake Huffman and Jazmine Johnson. They will compete in districts on March 26.
The third-grade winners of the Farm Bureau ‘Thank a Farmer’ poster contest were Colby Edlin, Janika Seckle and Ali Sampson. Farm Burea went into the third grade classrooms to talk about farming.
There are about 20 students taking advantage of reading and math tutoring at the elementary school, held Tuesday through Thursday.