My thanks go out to all of our paraprofessionals! It is paraprofessional recognition week and we are so grateful for the work they do in our buildings for our students. Patience, adaptability, understanding and compassion are the traits they exhibit – constantly encouraging our students to grow every day.

We are glad that all of our students are in school for in-person learning. The best learning occurs when students are at school with their teachers. As we await the COVID vaccine for staff, we will continue to experience students and staff who are out due to COVID reasons. We do ask parents to continue to be patient with calls about the need for their student to quarantine and the need to keep students home when they have COVID-like symptoms. We know it is stressful when you are called to pick up a student, but we do need to follow the established protocols in order to remain open. We are doing our very best to keep staff and students safe, while minimizing exposure to COVID. Information from the state continues to evolve each day regarding vaccinations, testing options, quarantine recommendations and how to operate schools and activities.

I am always so impressed with the programming we have for our students and families. When I visit our buildings, I have the opportunity to see great education in action. We have passionate staff who are always looking for ways to increase what they offer their students. While COVID has caused us to make major changes to what we can do in our buildings, our staff have been remarkable in adapting to new instructional strategies and how to reach their students and families.

The school board held their annual organizational meeting on Jan. 28. Board members re-elected for another term were sworn in, officers were selected, the board approved the designations for the official newspaper, official depositories (where we have conduct our banking) and legal counsel. Board committees were assigned and the board calendar was approved. These are all annual requirements school boards do to set the stage for the new board year.

Planning for next year is well underway. We spend time reviewing all of our current programs and the impact they have on students, we analyze our student enrollment trends, we develop budget assumptions on our way to make recommendations to the school board this spring. Throughout the process, we refine initial plans to further detail what we will do for the following year with programming, staffing and resourcing.

GO EAGLES!