Three teachers hired, several more positions open up
School board members approved the hiring of three new teachers during their regular meeting March 15.
They also accepted the resignation of long-time teacher Sheila Olson.
Superintendent Phillip Picquet told the board a contract for Title I has been offered to Angie Dickey of Imperial. He expects the board to act on that contract next month.
This week, Picquet said two teachers have indicated they will not be coming back next year.
They include Troy Kemling and Madison Seamann. Kemling is a half-time math teacher at the high school and Seamann teaches second grade.
Picquet said teachers are in the process of signing letters of intent for next year so it’s possible there could be more resignations.
Mikaela Stephenson will be joining the elementary staff as the 5th and 6th grade language arts teacher. She taught at Chase County Schools this year and her husband, Tristan, is the jr./sr. high art teacher at PCS.
Brandie Ross will take over the preschool with the retirement of Connie Mahnken. Ross is currently completing her student teaching with Mahnken and Olson.
Bethany Essink will be teaching special education and did her student teaching at PCS last year. She is a South Platte graduate.
Board members also approved contracts for administrators—Picquet, $142,308.75; High School Principal Ben Jones, $88,065; Elementary Principal Nancy Sorensen, $76,800.
Option Enrollment limits
Picquet presented a proposal to control the number of option enrollment students they will accept, based on the number of students the program can handle in each grade.
He recommended that no option enrollment students be accepted in grades 2-3, based on the number of students already in those classes.
Picquet said they can handle 30 students in each grade. Projections for next year show the two grades are at or over that 30-student capacity.
As a result, he recommended those two grades be closed.
He also recommended that Level I, II and III special education programs be closed as well, again based on the capacity the program can handle.
The program capacity is 30 students and right now, the projections show 30 students for those programs next year.
All other grades will be open for option enrollment, ranging from two students in 5th, 9th and 12th grades to as many as 15 in the 4th grade and 18 for the 11th grade.
Assessment testing
Principals Jones and Sorensen, along with curriculum and assessment coordinators Deanne Bishop and Nicole Long, provided further detail on the results of assessment testing in January.
At last month’s meeting, board members expressed the need to be more informed about the testing results to measure student progress.
That became especially important after school switched to online learning in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Each spoke to the extra challenges that COVID has produced.
Long said a student’s participation in online learning last spring didn’t necessarily mean higher test scores.
Some higher achieving students who were engaged in online course work didn’t score as well, she noted.
But at this point, Long said many elementary students have already met or exceeded their “COVID Recovery” goals.
What that means, she said, is that “they’re going to not just recover from the COVID but they’re also going to make the growth that they should have this year.”
Plus, there’s another quarter of school remaining to achieve or boost the expected gains.
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